Time Bandit
by Tie-dyed Trickster
Summary: Future Trunks ends up going farther back in time than he'd intended, and ends up running into (getting robbed by) the bandit Yamcha - who is too attractive for his own good, and far more decent than he first appears, but, really, doesn't seem that important. So taking him along for the ride shouldn't have any problematic effects on the timeline... right? (Yamcha age 16 in this)
1. First Time Meetings

Chapter 1: First Time Meetings

Trunks closed his eyes. Counted to ten. Opened them again. Looked around. Sighed and resisted the urge to thump his head against the instrument panel in front of him. His readings and the scenery remained the same – Diablo Desert, approximately sixteen years farther back in time than he'd meant to go. He sighed again. This was the danger of untested technology.

Not that they really _could_ have tested the time machine… Rubbing his forehead, he adjusted the coordinates, went to activate it again…

And hesitated. Let his ki sense spread out the way Gohan had taught him to, encompassing the desert, the country, the globe. This time period was so… peaceful. Serene. Trunks had never really realized what a constant hum the fearful ki from his timeline's Earth made in the back of his mind, but here, with it gone… tension he hadn't known he was carrying was flowing out of him. This world was at peace and, as far as Trunks was concerned, there were no noteworthy power levels anywhere on the planet. It would be so nice to just… stay awhile. Catch his breath. Not long – a day or two, a few weeks at most. After all, he had a _time machine_ , it wasn't like he could be _late_ to warn the Z Warriors and Son Goku…

Trunks popped open the time machine's lid, hopped out, capsulized it, and put it away. Then he looked around with a stretch and a contented sigh, taking in a deep breath of air. It was hot and dry here – he'd always liked the heat (Mom said it was probably his saiyan blood showing through), and nice and far away from anywhere populated. It would be a good place to rest for awhile, away from people and the possibility of screwing up the timeline. Hands in his pockets, he started walking, heading for some nearby rock formations. They seemed to have been hollowed out by the wind and sand, and the gusting air was making an interesting, whispery sort of music as it blew through them. A natural Aeolian harp. Cool.

He was just bending forward to examine some striations within one of the stone walls when something dropped on him from above, striking him hard in the back of the head, and the world went black.

OoOoOoOoO

Yamcha sprang off the youth he'd just landed on foot-first, dropping into a defensive stance in preparation for a counter-attack. He held it for a moment. The youth didn't move. Yamcha frowned and approached cautiously, nudging the prone figure with one booted foot, then snorting.

"Come on out, Pu'ar, he's down!"

"That quickly?" Pu'ar floated down from the ledge she'd been waiting on and which he'd jumped off of, "I thought you said he looked tough and that's why we ambushed him!"

"Yeah, well, his defence is apparently terrible." Yamcha smirked at her, "Come on, let's see what he's got with him."

OoOoOoOoO

Trunks groaned as he sat up, wincing as he rubbed the back of his head. What had hit him? And - he started as he took stock of himself – where was his sword? And his capsule case?! And- his boots?

He stared down at his bare feet for a moment. Why would someone take his boots?

He shook his head – that wasn't important right now. What _was_ important was his missing capsule case and the time machine it contained. Sure, he could technically wait the ten years to tell Goku and everyone about the androids (provided he could stop himself interfering in the timeline), but after that, how was he supposed to return to his _own_ timeline?! His mom, the people of Earth – the androids would kill them all!

Even as he felt the panic rising, old advice from Gohan echoed in his mind. _'Take a deep breath and let it cool you down, Trunks. You come from two passionate parents, it's not surprising you're passionate as well. Make it work for you, not against you – you rule your emotions, not the other way around.'_

He breathed in. Held it. Breathed out. Held it. Breathed in again. Stopped and _thought_. He was in a desert, empty, mostly isolated. His attacker couldn't have gone far with the resources of this age, and would likely be the nearest human ki presence.

Trunks extended his awareness again, searching- there! Human, higher than average ki, but still so low Trunks could easily have overlooked it as a potential threat (Gohan would have had him running drills for _hours_ for letting his guard down and making assumptions like that). Locking onto it, he rose into the air. Time to pay his robber a visit.

OoOoOoOoO

Kung Pao Rock was rather more… ostentatious than Trunks would have expected from a bandit's lair, though if the huge label were removed it would fit the image a lot better. He could hear voices from inside, and drifted silently to a window, keeping his ki low.

"-vehicles, and an honest-to-god _plane_!" a young man was crowing inside, "Selling all this will set us up for _ages_! And _this_ little beauty… _this_ one we keep for ourselves!"

" _Really_?" a squeaky voice asked, excited, "You know how it works, then?"

"No, but I think I can figure it out, it looks straight-forward enough," the male voice replied, confident, "And once I work out the power source, well. We'll have some fun, I'll tell you that!"

They'd found the time machine, _shit_! There was a metallic sound; if they tried messing with the engines or anything-!

Throwing caution to the wind, Trunks put on a burst of speed, zipped through a window, and tackled the youth standing inside. The young man let out a grunt and didn't have time to do more before Trunks had him pinned on the floor.

"DON'T YOU DARE- Mess… with…" Trunks started out strong, then tapered off. The guy on the floor couldn't have been any older than him and – Trunks swallowed – he was seriously attractive. Strong, handsome features, dark eyes, black hair tumbling unrestrained past his shoulders… Trunks swallowed again and felt his face heating up. Usually he didn't have too much trouble with his hormones – he didn't see that many people, especially not of his own age - and so they generally blindsided him when they did show up.

The bandit, meanwhile, was staring at him, stunned. The shock slowly melted into a lazy grin, though, an expression that suited him to an unfair level…

Trunks shook his head and narrowed his eyes. _Focus_! He opened his mouth to demand his stuff back.

He didn't get the chance.

"Change into a frying pan!"

Trunks barely had time to think 'what?' before he was once again struck in the back of the head and the world went dark.

OoOoOoOoO

He woke up very securely tied to a chair. Across from him the handsome youth was stirring something on a grill, and there was no sign of the time machine. The bandit looked up a moment later and gave that lazy grin again. "Oh, so you're awake." He moved the pot off the heat, then casually reached down and picked up Trunks' unsheathed sword from where it had been propped against a counter. Trunks glared.

"Hey, that's mine!"

"Not anymore," the bandit replied easily, walking forward, "I'll admit, it's an absolute beauty, though – I usually use a scimitar, but it might be worth learning the long sword to wield this lovely." He twirled it in his hand, then levelled it at Trunks' throat. "Time for that later, though. Right now, I want some answers – like how you managed to cross Diablo Desert so quickly on foot, especially at midday with no boots, and how you got up to that window without knowing where the handholds are."

Trunks glared at him. "Why should I tell you, I don't even know who you are!"

The bandit grinned. "Didn't I introduce myself? How rude." He gave a bow. "I am Yamcha, Lord of the Diablo Desert, and this is my associate, Pu'ar of the Thousand Forms." He straightened up and strolled over to Trunks, resting the flat of the sword on Trunks' shoulder in a casually threatening manner. "And you are?"

"Finished with this," Trunks said flatly, and snapped the ropes holding him, flaring his ki as he did so. Yamcha stumbled back, dropping the sword, and, in a flash, Trunks was on him, pinning him to the ground, one arm twisted behind his back. "Tell your friend not to try anything or I'll break your arm," he stated, praying his tone was convincing (he really didn't want to have to follow through (over-powering someone like this… it made his stomach twist)).

Yamcha snarled and struggled, but froze as he felt his bones begin to creak in Trunks' grip. "Pu'ar, stand down."

"But Lord Yamcha-" the squeaky voice came from behind the two of them, sounding upset.

"I said stand down!" Yamcha snapped, glaring over his shoulder at Trunks as best he could. "What do you _want_ , pretty boy?"

Trunks tried to will the blush those words incited away, but he was pretty sure he failed. He took a deep breath and schooled his features into a stern expression, like he'd seen on his father in the few photographs he had of him. "Where's my capsule case?"

"On the table," Yamcha growled, "Your scabbard's next to it."

"Good. And my boots?"

The bandit blinked at him, then laughed. "Haven't got 'em. Sorry, but you're out of luck on that point."

Trunks frowned. "But… you're the one who took all my other missing stuff…"

Yamcha made a dismissive sound. "Tch, what would I want with used boots? Especially ones that won't fit me?"

"How would you know they wouldn't fit if you didn't take them?" Trunks challenged.

He got an unimpressed look in return. "I've got eyes, don't I? Anyone ever tell you you've got small feet for a guy?"

Trunks resisted the urge to bang his head on something. "So you don't have my boots?"

"Nope."

"Great." Trunks sighed, then straightened his spine. "I'm going to let you up. Try anything, and you'll wish you hadn't."

This line completely failed to impress the other youth. "That's what you're going with? Really? 'I'll wish I hadn't?' Not very convincing."

Trunks glowered and held up a hand crackling with ki.

Yamcha paled. "Now that, on the other hand, is _very_ convincing. I'll behave."

"Good." Trunks slowly released his hold and Yamcha scrambled out from under him, moving to the far side of the room and watching Trunks warily. Slowly, a little blue-grey cat floated from behind a couch and onto Yamcha's shoulder. It whimpered a bit.

"Lord Yamcha…"

"Easy, Pu'ar," the bandit lifted one hand to rub the cat's ears, almost certainly without conscious thought, eyes never leaving Trunks as the demi-saiyan re-sheathed his sword and strapped it on, then opened his capsule case and gave it a quick scan. All present and accounted for.

He sighed in relief, then turned to the bandits. "As far as I'm concerned, we're done. You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. Fair?"

Yamcha narrowed his eyes. "Depends. You planning on staying long? 'cause I don't care how strong you are, try to poach on my territory and the desert'll have a new set of bones to clean."

"I just want to hide out for a bit," Trunks replied, affronted, "I don't steal. Now, about the deal I offered?"

Yamcha considered him a moment longer, then shrugged with the shoulder Pu'ar wasn't sitting on. "Sounds fair. Now get out of my house."

"Gladly." Trunks walked back to the window. The guy was attractive, but Trunks had more important things to think about. Climbing on the ledge, he leaped out, flying back to the rocks he'd started out at.

OoOoOoOoO

Yamcha gaped for a moment after the stranger jumped out the window, then darted over, fully expecting to see his splattered remains at the base of his home. Instead… nothing. He frowned, looking around. How had he done that? Had it been some sort of space trick, seeing as the other teen was most likely _from_ space or something. After all, only an alien could have had a vessel like the one the youth had arrived in, one that appeared in a flash of light and a pulse of sound (one that was, admittedly, familiar with Earth and it's tech (Planet Earth: come for the scenery, stay for the capsules (hmm… then again, maybe the kid was from Capsule Corp (he had that jacket (and that company made all _sorts_ of weird things…)))).

Pu'ar sighed from his shoulder. "Well, so much for today's haul…"

Yamcha allowed himself a smirk at that. "You know what I like best about outsiders, Pu'ar?"

His friend looked at him inquisitively. "No, what?"

Reaching into his pocket, Yamcha pulled out a very _particular_ capsule. "They're gullible." He held the capsule up and let his smirk grow wider. "He may have gotten most of his stuff back… but we've still got the treasure."

OoOoOoOoO

 _And that's chapter one. Bandit Yamcha's really fun to write – he's so confident and sassy and determined, and he's got a wily streak that a lot of people seem to forget about. As for how he got the drop on Trunks like that, as mentioned, Trunks wasn't paying attention to his surroundings, and he also had his ki partially capped. Furthermore, Yamcha dropped on him from a decent height, and struck Trunks directly in the back of the head with his heel, so that the full force of Yamcha's momentum and weight was focussed in a small area. And, as Yamcha is canonically pretty tall and muscular, and given that muscle weighs more than fat, I can see him being a good 160 lbs_ _ **bare minimum**_ _, so that blow would probably have been enough to kill a normal person. Thank kami this is Dragon Ball._

 _I'd also like to note that, while Yamcha/Future!Trunks is not something I generally go for (too many potential squick factors for me), I'm okay with it in this situation for two reasons:_

 _This Yamcha has yet to meet Bulma, derailing any potential weird Freudian shit that could come from dating your ex's son, even if he is from the future and of legal age as a result._

 _Speaking of legal age, at the moment Trunks is seventeen years old, and Yamcha is canonically sixteen at this time, the same age as Bulma, and since these are currently two people with absolutely_ _ **no**_ _prior experience with each other, I'm setting their ages at how long they've been alive, regardless of when exactly those years of life happened. Which means, in the continuity of this fic, Trunks is actually a year_ _ **older**_ _than Yamcha. Yeah, time travel just makes everything weird._


	2. Two-timed

Chapter 2 – Two-timed

Trunks reached the hollowed stones quickly and as he came in to land his eye was caught by something in the desert.

It was his boots. They were sitting very neatly about thirty feet from the rock formations, in plain sight from the area Trunks had been exploring. Frowning, he skimmed low and grabbed them as he went by, the frown deepening as he noticed a large, folded piece of paper tucked deep in the left one. Settling in the shade, he tugged it out. There was a note on it.

' _Greetings,'_ it said, _'Hope you enjoyed your time in the Whispering Rocks while you waited for the sun to set so you could get your boots back. By now I'm_ _ **long**_ _gone, so I wouldn't bother trying to find me or your stuff. It's mine now, you'll have to make peace with that._

' _I'm not entirely heartless, though. This paper is a map. If you follow its directions and travel at night, it should take you safely to the desert's edge, with minimal dehydration._

 _~Yamcha, Lord of the Diablo Desert'_

Unfolding the paper showed that there really was a map inside, with a clearly marked route and notes indicating places with shelter, shade, and/or water. Trunks blinked. This was… unexpected. Maybe the bandit wasn't so bad after all. Maybe…

Trunks chuckled and slapped his own cheek lightly. The guy was a bandit. A very handsome bandit, but still an outlaw, a thief, not to mention from a different timeline.

Didn't mean a guy couldn't dream, though…

Shaking his head, Trunks tipped some sand from his boots and pulled them back on, folding the map back up and slipping it in a pocket. Then he pulled out his capsule case, just reassure himself that-

That-

He frowned as he looked over the capsules. Something was off. He wasn't sure what, exactly, but something- the font. All his capsules were carefully numbered, and he'd long since memorized what each number held, but one… the font of one capsule was close to the others, close… but not quite the same.

…

 _ **That rotten bandit!**_ He'd switched the capsules on him! He'd- he'd-!

Trunks stared for a moment. Then he snapped the case closed and took off again, heading towards Kung Pao Rock. Who _knew_ what would happen to the time stream if he didn't get it back…

OoOoOoOoO

"See, told you – it's probably solar powered. And if it isn't, well, I can probably fix that. Seriously, though, we've hit the jackpot with this one, Pu'ar!"

Trunks gritted his teeth, hearing the voices coming through the windows again, and shot through, landing in the room with a thump that made the two bandits within jump. "That doesn't belong to you!"

Yamcha startled from where he'd been poking carefully around in the machine's innards, then scowled. "You again? I thought we had a deal – get lost!"

"You said my capsules were on the table!" Trunks snapped, "Of course I'm going to come back if you lie about something like that!"

Yamcha had the gall to smirk. "I said your capsule _case_ was on the table – never said all the capsules were in it. It's not my fault if you left without checking." He stood up, moving between Trunks and the machine, hand casually resting on his own sword. "And if you think I'm going to give up this prize without a fight, think again!"

Trunks stared at him, then past him at the machine, then back at Yamcha. "Seriously?"

Yamcha's stance grew more aggressive. "Dead serious."

"But…" Trunks' gaze traveled between the bandit and the machine again, "It's just a fridge."

" _Just_ a fridge?!" Yamcha's glare became indignant, " _Just_ a-?! _**We are in a desert**_!"

"So?" Trunks was seriously confused. He'd thought the bandit had messed up in which capsule he'd swapped out, and that once he'd discovered that he didn't have the right one he'd return the capsule without much fuss. But apparently the fridge (with all its advanced systems that could _seriously_ skew the progress of technology if Trunks left it behind and a scientist (or worse, his _mother_ ) got ahold of it) had been his goal after all.

" **So**?" Yamcha snorted, "So Kung Pao is too isolated to be connected to the electrical grid or anything – and even if it wasn't, I'm a wanted bandit. Can't exactly have everyone knowing where I live." He put a hand on the fridge and grinned. "So this- this is a _huge_ opportunity! Think about it – eggs! Milk! Do you have any _idea_ how many dishes require perishable ingredients or need to sit somewhere cool for a period of time during their preparation?!"

"And we can get fresh fish!" Pu'ar added, coming to bob excitedly beside her friend, "And butter! And we'll be able to go to town for supplies without having to drive back at night or race the heat so it doesn't all spoil!"

Trunks stared at them, then rubbed his forehead. "Let me get this straight. You want the fridge… so you can cook better food."

"Yes." Yamcha folded his arms challengingly, "I like to cook. Besides, I'm the Lord of the Desert – lords are supposed to eat fancy. It's a thing."

"Oh is it?" Trunks asked drily.

Yamcha gave a firm nod, "If you wanna be a _proper_ lord, you have to have a good fortress, sharp clothes, followers, eat fancy food, collect tribute, be good at fighting, and m-marry a pretty wife." The bandit's cheeks turned a little pink at the last item on the list and he coughed. "Anyway, nowhere in this whole desert is as secure as Kung Pao Rock, I've got the clothes, Pu'ar counts as a follower, I get tribute from passing travellers, and I'm a great fighter! With the fridge, I'll be able to do the food thing, and then that just leaves the issue of finding a w-wife." He was blushing again, but also looking triumphant and defiant, "In other words, I'm almost official! So I'll definitely be keeping the fridge."

Trunks stared at him for a moment and then… he couldn't help it. He sat down on the floor and laughed. Yamcha squawked angrily at him for laughing at a man's dreams, but Trunks ignored him. This entire situation, it was just so- so _frivolous_ compared to the life and death straights he was used to. It was kind of refreshing. And Yamcha looked so passionate about the whole 'Lord' thing, and the way he blushed… it was pretty cute.

Wiping his eyes, he looked up at the annoyed bandit, who was glaring at him. "Sorry," he chuckled, "But I can't let you keep that thing. It's a- a prototype, and I need to get it back to the lab when I'm done with it."

"Aw, come on," Yamcha switched from belligerent to pleading in a flash (he must have remembered the threatened ki attack, and how effortlessly Trunks had snapped those ropes), "What if I, I dunno, actually _paid_ for it or something?"

"Lord Yamcha!" Pu'ar squeaked, paws flying to her mouth, "Are you sure-?"

"Quiet, Pu'ar, there's plenty in the budget for groceries _and_ negotiations," the lead bandit hissed.

Trunks chuckled again and held up a hand. "I can't let you keep it, _or_ buy it… but if you let me stay awhile, I might be able to build you one."

"What, really?" Yamcha blinked, then eyed him with a wary curiosity, mixed with desire for what was being offered.

"Sure. Could probably make it a bit bigger than this one, too, if we really did use solar energy to charge it." Trunks wasn't sure why he was offering to do this exactly – partly to see if he really could (he was his mother's son, after all), but also at least in part because the other teen was rather interesting. Trunks had never met anyone quite like him before, so utterly sure of himself and his goals.

Yamcha, meanwhile, narrowed his eyes and held up a finger. "One moment."

Trunks struggled to hide a smile as the self-proclaimed 'Lord of the Desert' conferred with his friend a few feet away in hushed tones. He caught the occasional word – 'space,' 'trust,' 'soufflé.' After a moment, Yamcha straightened, casually flicking his hair over one shoulder as he sauntered over. "Sure, why not? I've never entertained anyone here before, or had guests. Could be fun." He held out a hand, grinning, "Warning you, though, if you can't build another, I'm gonna do my damnedest to keep this one."

"Not gonna happen," Trunks replied, but he clasped the other teen's hand with a grin. This _was_ going to be interesting. "So, what do you have in the way of materials?"

OoOoOoOoO

As it turned out, Yamcha had an impressive amount of mechanical junk Trunks could pull apart to work with, and he was a surprisingly gracious host, in a rough sort of way. Pu'ar came to fetch Trunks shortly after the sun had set, with the news that supper was ready. There was a place set for him at the table – none of the dishware matched, and there were three completely different sets of chopsticks, but it was all in good condition, and clean.

The food was good, too – stir-fry with seasoned rice. Not enough to satisfy Trunks, of course, but, eh, that was what nutrient tablets were for. His mother might not have been able to replicate the healing effects of a senzu bean, but the sustenance aspect was, fortunately, another matter. He kept them in a bottle in his jacket, and had been a little surprised that Yamcha hadn't taken them. The bandit looked affronted when he asked him about it.

"Those things are medicine, right?"

"Yeah, sort of," Trunks replied.

"Well there you go," Yamcha nodded, like this explained everything.

"You don't mess with other peoples' medicine," Pu'ar added primly from her place at the table.

Trunks just shook his head and took his tablet.

After supper he was offered the choice of either the couch or making his own sleeping arrangements. He went with the couch. It looked comfortable enough, and it felt awkward to break out his emergency capsule house when it wasn't really an emergency.

Also, to his surprise, after gathering the supper dishes and setting them in the sink, Yamcha went to a cabinet and removed an assortment of capsules, then headed for the door while Pu'ar went to wash the dishes. Trunks watched the human bandit warily.

"Where are you going?"

Yamcha glanced over his shoulder. "Night patrol and training."

"And… you're just going to leave me here?"

"Sure, why not?" Yamcha raised an eyebrow at him.

"Uh…" Trunks blinked. "I could… take my fridge and leave? Or clean you out?"

Yamcha blinked back at him then chuckled, shaking his head. "You won't do that."

Trunks bristled, annoyed at being so easily dismissed. "How do you know? We only met today!"

Yamcha grinned and held up two fingers. "Two reasons. One, Pu'ar's going to be here, and she's a lot more dangerous than you'd think. Two, well," his grin widened, "You just won't." he turned and strolled out, hands in his pockets. "It's not the kind of guy you are."

"You don't know that!" Trunks protested, annoyed and not entirely sure why he was annoyed.

Yamcha glanced back over his shoulder and smirked. "Feel free to prove me wrong if you want. I worked my way up to this point once, I can do it again."

Trunks stared after him as the bandit left. A few minutes later there was the faint sound of a motor starting up, growing fainter as Yamcha's ki signature moved farther away. Once he could no longer hear the sound, Trunks stood and walked over to Pu'ar. "He _does_ remember that I'm stronger than both of you, right?"

"Maybe, but we still got you twice," Pu'ar replied calmly, "You only got us once, so we're still winning. Besides, you're a nice guy. If you weren't, you wouldn't be making us a fridge, and you wouldn't have made that deal with Lord Yamcha earlier, and lots of other stuff."

"I could be playing you," Trunks pointed out.

Pu'ar sniffed. "I also happen to be a cat."

"So?" Trunks subconsciously picked up a dishcloth and started to dry the dishes as Pu'ar washed them.

"So cats are _excellent_ judges of character. Everyone knows that." Pu'ar rolled her eyes, then gestured with one begloved paw. "Just set them on the table when you're done drying them."

Trunks grinned slightly as he followed her instructions. "But you hang out with a bandit lord. What does that say about your ability to judge character?"

"That he's a good friend – I've known him a long time." she pointed at him warningly, "And he's a strong warrior, even if you did beat him a little today! We've held this whole desert as our territory for three years now, and we've been living in it and fighting for it for another three! So don't underestimate us just 'cause Lord Yamcha's being nice and letting you stay here!"

"Okay, I won't," Trunks promised, turning away a little to hide his amusement.

"Good!" Pu'ar nodded, " 'cause Lord Yamcha's gonna be the _best_ one day, and he'll win the Budokai and become a famous martial artist and get Wolf Fang style right up there with Crane and Turtle!"

Trunks blinked. "…isn't he a wanted outlaw?"

Pu'ar waved a dismissive paw. "No one cares about that sort of thing when you're famous."

"…if you say so…"

OoOoOoOoO

Later that night, Trunks lay on the couch, half asleep, vaguely thinking about the day's events, and how different the world would be in thirty years, when he picked up the faint sound of someone approaching stealthily. He didn't precisely think when the presence came up to him and he felt something on him, just reacted, hand snapping out, grabbing a wrist, a yell, a tangle of limbs, then-

Yamcha was staring up at him from where he lay on his back on the floor, Trunks kneeling over him and pinning the bandit's arms with his hands. They remained in those positions for a movement, unmoving. Then Yamcha squirmed and turned bright red. "Last time _I_ try to be nice," he grumbled.

"I- what?" Trunks frowned, his mind slowly clearing again, "What were you doing?"

"Getting you a blanket," the bandit glowered, "Forgot to give you one earlier, and it gets _cold_ here at night. Feh, you city people are all the same – come out here expecting it to be hot the whole time, then you get pneumonia when the temperature drops at night." He squirmed again, then turned away, somehow blushing even redder, "Look, could you let me up? Or at- at least move your leg, before this gets even _more_ embarrassing?"

Trunks blinked, then glanced down between them and… oh. Yeah, his knee was getting a little, um, _intimate_ there. He hastily let go of Yamcha's arms and the bandit scooched backwards with equal haste until they were sitting across from each other, red-faced. Turning away from the other teen, Trunks noticed a blanket lying crumpled on the floor, not too far away. He reached out and snagged it. "Um, thanks."

"Don't mention it." Yamcha got up, face still red, "But tomorrow you explain how you got so ungodly strong."

He walked off before Trunks could respond. The demi-saiyan sighed and got back on the couch, pulling the blanket over top of himself as he did so.

OoOoOoOoO

 _In which the theft of boots actually had a specific, tactical purpose, which was alluded to in the first chapter. Yamcha's actually pretty smart in his own way._

 _You guys have_ _ **no idea**_ _how much fun it was to watch you all assume Yamcha had stolen the time machine, forgetting that there's actually another capsule that Trunks is shown using very early on, and which would be of far more interest and use to a desert-dweller like him, especially one who likes to cook! For starters, he knows what the damn thing is. ;) Also, if you look back, you'll note I never actually_ _ **described**_ _the machine Yamcha was talking about in the first chapter. Implication – the trickster's friend._

 _For those wondering, Yamcha grabbed a coat on his way out for night-patrol, but it was in a different room, so Trunks didn't see it and he isn't used to the desert, so he didn't think to ask for a blanket._

 _Pu'ar is a darling, and I wish she was as easy to write as she was in this chapter all the time – I often struggle with her, simply because her main character features in the manga are her friendship with Yamcha and dislike of Oolong, and that's really not a lot to work with, even for me. (sighs) One day…_

 _Trunks and Yamcha, on the other hand, are both so consistently fun to write in this. Yamcha's very bold and outgoing, which makes a nice contrast to Mirai Trunks' more subdued, polite personality. It's a fun dynamic to work with, especially when they're getting along._

 _Also, the fridge was not solar powered. Not even a little bit. Yamcha's good with tech, but he doesn't have a candle on Trunks or Bulma. :)_


	3. A Time Out (from life)

Chapter 3 – A Time Out (from life)

Trunks didn't end up telling Yamcha why he was so strong – not the whole story, at least.

"I had a good teacher," was all he really said.

Yamcha wasn't happy, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Instead, he focussed on his patrols and the day-to-day activities involved in surviving in the desert. For example, Trunks learned that Kung Pao Rock had a cave under it that contained a decent-sized freshwater spring, cold and fast, which supplied water to the rock's occupants. Some former owner had fitted the lair with a clever system of pipes to carry water to the upper levels, though buckets were still needed to haul water for laundry or baths. Trips also had to be made to various villages for foodstuffs that couldn't be scrounged or hunted in the desert. A surprising amount of mundane activity went into banditry, it seemed. Sort of like living in an apocalypse.

Trunks, for his part, worked on the promised fridge, kept up his training, and, maybe, sometimes, watched Yamcha do his own training. Occasionally. From time to time.

…

Okay, so he watched him pretty often. It wasn't his fault – the guy was gorgeous and, while there was a lot of room for improvement, he had the makings of a great marital artist.

Besides, the bandit was… intriguing. Once you got him to drop his 'Bandit Lord' routine, Yamcha was pretty friendly, with an open grin and an easy laugh. He took care of Pu'ar with a similar level of devotion that she displayed towards him, yet he showed no qualms about his current lifestyle, and he had a terrifying arsenal of weapons he was proficient with.

"I stole 'em and learned how to use 'em," he said simply when Trunks asked.

"Why?" Trunks asked curiously.

Yamcha's gaze darkened. "You ever have someone you love die? And you were powerless to stop it?" Trunks nodded, his throat tightening as the memory of Gohan passed through his mind, and some of the coldness in Yamcha's eyes turned to sympathy. "Well me too. And I'm never going to let it happen again. Ever."

Trunks nodded again. "Me either."

Yamcha gave him a long look, followed by a crooked grin. "Guess we've got that in common then, city boy." He gave Trunks's shoulder a friendly cuff as he passed him on his way outside, and Trunks watched him with a sigh. Kind and mercantile, clever and ignorant, friendly and arrogant…. Yamcha was confusing, a contradiction, a strange blend of seasoned bandit and romantic teenager and, if Trunks was being honest with himself, he was starting to find it a little hard not to fall for the guy.

Which was why the fridge he was making was still only halfway done. He had supplies, and he had a physical blueprint in the form of _his_ fridge (even if he was dumbing it down to approximately the current level of technology in this time period), and, for the son and student of Bulma Briefs, it wasn't much of a challenge. Once he was finished, though, he'd have no excuse to hang around any longer.

Not that he could stay forever, anyway. The future would arrive eventually, and he had a duty to his own time line. And, even on a more mundane level, his supply of nutrient tablets wouldn't last forever, and once it was gone, his appetite would become an issue.

For now, though, he had about half a bottle left, and he was pretty sure he could string the fridge out for at least another few weeks. For now, it was safe to keep being selfish for once, to keep watching and dreaming his impossible dreams…

OoOoOoOoO

Yamcha watched his guest curiously. The guy was… confusing. Mostly he was quiet and well-spoken, polite and considerate. Typical weak-willed city boy. But other times… his eyes lit up when he was working on the fridge, and he wasn't afraid to get dirty while digging around for a part he needed. And the few katas Yamcha had caught him doing… those were impressive, and Yamcha was sorely tempted to ask who his master was, and if they were still accepting students. Not to mention the way the guy had pinned him while still half-asleep that night. That spoke of a much more dangerous history than the guy's clean-cut appearance indicated.

The guy was surprised by odd things, too, like the first time he saw Yamcha in his town clothes, a couple weeks after they'd first met.

Yamcha had already put on his loose, blue-grey robes, and was in the kitchen with the sleeves rolled up, wrapping black strips of cloth around his forearms (to hide the tan lines his bracers left) when the guy walked in, wiping his face on a greasy cloth that wasn't doing anything to get him any cleaner (which Yamcha would have commented on if Pu'ar hadn't teased him for doing the exact same thing while working on their various modes of transport on numerous occasions). The guy stopped, blinked, and shook his head.

Yamcha just glanced at him. "Oh, hey, good timing – I need to use your fridge."

"I- what? Why?"

"Going to town for supplies – might as well use it while it's here." He tied off the last strip of cloth and began wrapping his hair up in a heavy, blue scarf.

The guy sat down across from him and almost set the greasy rag on the table, but stopped at the death glare Yamcha shot him, draping it on his knee instead. "Oh. Okay, I guess. What's with the clothes?"

Yamcha rolled his eyes. "Wanted criminal here. I can't exactly go strolling into town and ask for a dozen eggs in my bandit gear." Though eggs were a good idea – he should grab some when he got there-

"So… they don't recognise you when you're dressed like that?" the guy asked and got a rude noise in response.

"Of _course_ they recognise me – or at least they know who I am. They're not stupid."

This got him a confused look. "Then why wear it at all?"

"Because this way they can _pretend_ they don't know who I am. You know, in case of outsiders and stuff, so I don't get arrested or anything." Yamcha rolled his eyes. Really, city people…

The other teen still looked confused though. "They know you're a bandit… and they're okay with it?"

"Sure, I'm useful," Yamcha grinned, tucking the end of his scarf in and feeling to make sure it was secure, then resting his arms on the table, "But, better than that, I'm smart. I don't target the locals or their caravans when they pass through. The stuff I steal and sell to them they can either use or sell for an even better price elsewhere, and a good portion of what I make ends up staying in the villages anyway, because I have to buy groceries and other supplies there.

"I also don't kill any of my targets, or maim them or anything, and I keep away bandits of a… shall we say a more short-sighted nature? Not to mention no one else has ever managed to hold the whole desert as well as I do before."

The other teen looked surprised for a moment, then comprehension dawned. "Like the map you left me – subtly herding travellers onto a specified route so you don't have to cover as much ground on your patrols and can steal from them more easily if they pass through again, since they'll likely take the 'easier' route you've provided?"

Yamcha blinked. Then he beamed – no one had ever clued in on that before (which, to be fair _was_ to his advantage), and it was fun to be able to show off a bit. "Exactly! It's all about being a threat and making a living, but not being a big enough problem to make it worth the authorities' time to try and catch me. After all," he winked at the other teen, "A lord _manages_ his territory, he doesn't run it into the ground."

His guest gave an amused snort. "Where did you learn all this stuff about lords, anyway?"

"I have a book," Yamcha replied easily.

"Oh?" the other teen raised one of his eyebrows a little, "Where'd you get it?"

Yamcha's grin faded a little. "I took it with me after."

"After what?"

The grin faded away entirely. "Just after."

Yamcha's story, as far as he was concerned, wasn't very interesting and definitely wasn't original. Once, he'd had a family. Then he didn't. It had been the same for a lot of people who'd lived in that village – those who had survived the attack, at any rate. Back then, his luck had been bad, so he'd left to make it better.

Now he had Pu'ar, and a new home, and a reputation, and, sometime in the future, he's marry and start a new family (well, family beyond Pu'ar). Things were slowly falling into place. The future was bright, and getting brighter, and the past was dark, so he focussed on the future because, if he kept going, kept improving, then that meant eventually the past would be bright as well.

His guest was frowning at him, though, looking worried, so Yamcha grinned again and changed the subject. "What's your name, anyway? You never did say."

The guy looked away uncomfortably. "I can't tell you."

Yamcha snorted. "Well I can't keep calling you 'that guy who's building me a fridge' in my head – it's obnoxious as hell! Give me _something_ to call you, I don't care if you make it up!"

"Um, I guess that's reasonable?" his guest conceded, "How about, um… Mirai?" he glanced back at Yamcha, who considered it for a moment, then nodded.

"I like that, it suits you." He gave a lazy grin, "So, about that fridge?"

The gu- Mirai's cheeks turned pink again. "It's… not finished yet?"

Yamcha gave a snort of laughter, "No, not that one – the one you already have? For the groceries?" he held out a hand and wiggled his fingers, "Come on, I don't wanna be out in the open sand during the heat of the day."

Mirai turned pinker, removed the capsule in question from its case (which he always kept close to him for some reason), and tossed it to Yamcha, who caught it neatly.

"Thanks, see you 'round." He got up from the table, gave a little salute, and strolled off. Yeah, the future was definitely bright. And now it included a fridge! Granted, the fridge was taking longer than Yamcha had expected; he had a sneaking suspicion that Mirai might be dawdling a bit. But he wasn't sure _why_ the other teen would do that, so he hadn't confronted him about it yet.

Besides, once the fridge was done, Mirai wouldn't have a reason to stay any longer, and would probably head off to another section of Diablo or the city or even the stars. And Yamcha was maybe-kinda-sorta enjoying having him around, and wouldn't mind having him stay longer – at least until Yamcha figured out why it was so much fun to make him blush.

Or why he couldn't get that incident with the blanket entirely out of his mind.

OoOoOoOoO

The sun was setting when Yamcha returned from his supply run. Trunks had been taking the time to do a proper workout, and he was just finishing when the growl of an airbike became audible. A few moments later, Yamcha himself became visible, robe flapping and once-again loose hair flying wildly around his head. He must have spotted Trunks, because he let out a whoop that brought Pu'ar zipping from a second-floor window, where she'd either been doing maintenance on some of the weapons or having a nap (with Pu'ar either was likely).

Tunks stood up and wiped the sweat from his brow, reigning in his ki again as Pu'ar bobbed in the air, waving both arms excitedly as they waited for their friend. A few moments later Yamcha pulled up and hopped off his bike, laughing and tugging his sand goggles to the top of his head.

"Lord Yamcha!" Pu'ar squeaked happily, flying around his head a few times then tsking. "Oh, Lord Yamcha, your lovely hair – it's all knotted again!"

Yamcha laughed and waved her off. "I'll brush it out later – for now, we feast! Come on!" he didn't even bother recapsulizing his airbike, just left it sitting by the door as he strode in, Pu'ar zipping after him.

Trunks blinked for a moment, then followed as well. The two bandits were already a good distance into the lair, heading for the kitchen. Yamcha was just unslinging his knapsack as Trunks entered, talking excitedly with Pu'ar as he did so."

"-fresh in today, so I got some great cuts! And I was able to use the cooler _and_ the fridge, so we've got enough to stretch for days, and I don't even have to cook it all tonight!"

"What did you get?" Pu'ar was bouncing on the ground, "Tell me tell me tell me!"

"See for yourself," Yamcha deployed a cooler capsule and Pu'ar pulled the lid off and stuck her head in. Then she pulled it out again, pouting.

"It's all fruit and vegetables!"

" 'course it is," Yamcha smirked, holding up another capsule, "The good stuff is in here."

Trunks leaned in the doorway and smiled as the fridge was deployed. He'd never seen anyone make quite such a production of a shopping trip, not even the survivors he'd encountered in his own time, but it was kinda fun to watch – their excitement was contagious. Eggs, milk, packets of meat and fresh soba noodles, butter, cheese… Pu'ar's eyes went wide as Yamcha reached behind the meat and pulled out a small, blueish bottle.

"Is that…?"

"Yup," he gave it a good shake, then handed it to her, "Chilled cream. Don't drink it too fast, or you'll get hiccups."

"Oooo~!" Pu'ar took the bottle eagerly and Yamcha grinned, then glanced at Trunks.

"Hey, Mirai, get in here! Go grab the recipe book off the shelf – we gotta figure out what we're gonna make all this into!"

Trunks straightened and walked in, eyeing the still-bulging knapsack. "What's in there if all the food's out already?"

"There's more food – flour, a little fresh bread, some tinned shrimp," Yamcha grinned as Pu'ar gave a happy whimper at the last, "You know, non-perishable food – and some other stuff. Fuel pellets, another canister of gas for the grill, fabric, that kind of stuff."

"Fabric?"

"Yeah, my clothes are getting kinda worn – time to make a new formal set. After all," he tossed some hair back over his shoulder and winked, "Lords dress nice."

Trunks shook his head with a smile and went to the indicated shelf of books. His brows knit a little as he looked at them. "These are _all_ cookbooks."

"Yeah, I know," Yamcha was unwinding the wrappings from his arms and rolling them up at the same time.

"Well which one did you want?"

"Just grab the one that looks the most interesting," Yamcha finished one arm and started on the other, "They've all got recipes I want to try in them."

Trunks nodded and turned back to the books. Some were older, some newer, and most of them had bits of paper sticking out of them, making them fatter than they otherwise would be. On a hunch, he grabbed the one with the most paper in it, a green volume with a light tan pattern on it and no other decoration or labelling to speak of. Yamcha rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue when he handed it to him.

"Suck up."

"You want me to grab a different one?"

"I didn't say that." Yamcha plucked the book from his hand and balanced it on its spine on the table, holding it upright with one hand and grinning at Pu'ar before speaking in an over-dramatic tone of voice, "Oh great recipe gods, I command ye speak through this book! What shall be our supper tonight?" he let go and the book flopped open with an ease that indicated this page had been referenced often in the past. Yamcha barely glanced at it before taking a triumphant pose. "The gods have spoken! Hard-baked soba it is!"

Pu'ar flew over and swatted him. "Lord Yamcha! Do it _properly_!"

He half-heartedly fended off her attacks, laughing, "Okay, okay, being serious now! Come on, you two, help me pick. I think this is the one with that garlic cheese sauce I've been wanting to try, and that'd go well with the dinosaur…"

OoOoOoOoO

The sauce did end up being on the menu, drizzled over skewers of meat and vegetables, along with fresh bread and butter.

At the end of the meal, Yamcha went and found a brush and began the labour of getting all the knots out of his hair, grumbling as he did so. Pu'ar sniffed over by the sink where she and Trunks were doing the dishes. "If you're going to knowingly let it get all tangled either don't complain or cut it off."

"Yeah, yeah," Yamcha made a face, working on an especially nasty knot. "Option two sounds pretty good right now – where's a knife?"

"Don't!" The word popped out before Trunks could stop it, and he blushed as Pu'ar and Yamcha both stopped to stare at him. "Er, that is…" he turned back to drying in an attempt to hide his burning face, "Long hair suits you so well, it would be a shame to cut it."

"Oh." Yamcha's voice was surprised, pleasure colouring the tone as he continued, "Thanks. Guess I'll just have to find something to loosen the knots, then. Pu'ar, where'd I leave that ointment?"

"Under the sink on the first floor where you always leave it, Lord Yamcha!"

"Okay, thanks."

There was a rustling sound and Yamcha left the room. The dishes didn't take long, and afterwards Trunks went to wash off the sweat from his earlier workout, collecting a bucket from the first floor, filling it with water from the spring, then grabbing a cloth and some soap and heading outside, smiling a bit to himself as he did so. Adapting to life in the desert hadn't been so hard, though he suspected Kung Pao's secret water reserve had gone a long way in helping.

When he stepped outside he found Yamcha already there, with his own bucket of water and a bottle of stuff that smelled pleasantly of plants, carefully brushing his hair, silvery in the light of the waxing moon. He'd taken off his robes and was sitting in pants of the undyed fabric he made most of his non-bandit, non-town clothes from.

Most of the knots had come out already, and his hair spilled in damp waves over his shoulders as Yamcha worked the last bits smooth. He glanced up as he noticed Trunks' presence. "Hey."

"Hey." Trunks walked over curiously, "How come you don't have to do this every time you go out? You don't usually tie your hair back."

Yamcha snorted. 'Usually I put this stuff on _before_ I go out," he gestured at the dark bottle by his feet, "Keeps it from tangling so badly, and I think it protects it from the wind and the sun a bit. I didn't put it in today 'cause I had it all wrapped up – usually I leave it that way 'til I get home, but, eh," his lips quirked ruefully, "I got over-excited. Fortunately, if you mix it with soap, this stuff gets the tangles out again pretty well, too."

"Smells nice," Trunks looked over the bottle curiously, "There's no label. Who makes it?"

"I do," came the easy reply, "There's this weed with really fleshy leaves. You squeeze the juice out and, hey presto! Hair stuff."

Trunks shook his head, bemused, "Do you do _everything_ for yourself?"

Yamcha stopped brushing to look at Trunks, head tilted to one side. "Who's going to do it for me? Pu'ar helps out a lot, but she's a shape-shifting cat. She doesn't always understand human stuff." A few more strokes and he set the brush down, ran his fingers through his hair a few times, and then pushed it back over his shoulders, glancing at Trunks' bucket. "Want me to go grab some kindling and stuff?"

"Why?"

Yamcha stared at him. "To make a fire to heat up the water, of course – unless you _want_ to rub down with ice-melt! And maybe it's just me, but it's a little cold now to be doing that!" as if to prove a point he reached over to his bundle of robes and pulled them back on without getting up.

Trunks grinned. "Thanks, but I've got it." He'd been avoiding showing off too many of his abilities since he'd arrived, but Yamcha already _knew_ he could manipulate ki and, to be honest, he wanted to show off a little. For legitimate reasons that _didn't_ involve wanting to show off to an attractive guy who had just been brushing his hair half-naked in the moonlight. Really.

Sitting down in front of Yamcha, he grasped his bucket of water with both hands and focussed his ki the way Gohan had taught him, concentrating so that he heated the water without damaging the vessel. After a few moments, steam began to rise from the surface of the water and Yamcha was staring at it with wide eyes.

"Did you do that with ki?"

"Yeah," Trunks admitted, grinning at the admiring, slightly envious look on the other teen's face.

"Damn." Yamcha stared a moment longer, then grinned as well. "I'm gonna learn how to do that!"

"What, heat water?"

"No! Well, yes, but I mean manipulate my ki! I'd be unbeatable!"

Trunks looked at the excited teen before him and suddenly felt ashamed. His mother had told him about the Z Warriors, the champions of Earth, its greatest warriors, including her ex, who had died with the others in that final stand against the androids. There would one day be a man called Yamcha who could use ki and fly and stand beside the others in the final battle… but it wouldn't be _this_ Yamcha. He'd seen a picture of him, once, a long time ago. _That_ man had had short hair that was gelled into spikes, some prominent facial scars, and a shadow in his eyes, like he'd seen the top of a mountain and known he could never hope to reach it. And he'd been a quiet man, from what little his mom had said, passive, willing to take a backseat to the other, stronger Z Warriors.

And he'd _certainly_ never been a desert bandit, let alone someone as vibrant and confident as the teen sitting before him, making plans for a future that would never happen…

Trunks clenched his jaw. _No_. He'd come here to change the past, hadn't he? And how could it be anything but an advantage in the long run to have an extra potential Z Warrior, even if having two guys called Yamcha might be a little confusing for people? They'd look different enough, anyway – they'd probably figure something out.

That decided, Trunks looked at his Yamcha, a new light in his eyes. "Want to learn now? Ah, that is," his cheeks heated as Yamcha focussed on him with startling intensity, "I could show you some of the basics if you're interested."

Yamcha's face lit up like the sun rising. "Oh _kami_ , yes!"

OoOoOoOoO

 _Hello, my lovelies! It's interesting, isn't it – often enough we meet people with the same name as us or other people we know in real life, but in fiction each character is often the only person with their name in the entire universe (or at least that's how it's portrayed). That said, I can easily see this happening. I honestly don't think Future Trunks would know much about Future Yamcha – I mean, which would you rather hear about? Your mom's ex-boyfriend whom you believe constantly cheated on her until she finally dumped him or your super-cool royal space-warrior dad who no one really understood and who gave his life leading a final stand against the monsters terrorizing your world? And no, I don't think Yamcha really cheated on Bulma in any timeline – but I_ _ **can**_ _see her saying to Trunks "Yeah, we fought a lot, I used to yell at him about cheating on me all the time, and finally I got tired of it and we broke up for good," and neglecting to mention that he didn't actually cheat on her, she just yelled at him about it (because she is shown to be a very jealous girlfriend, regardless of the accuracy of her accusations). Also, look at Yamcha's character design from when he was sixteen compared to his look in the android arc – even allowing for the change in Toriyama's style, they look like two different people. Maybe related, but certainly not the same person. So not only does Trunks not know much about his timeline's Yamcha, he's got no reason to think this is the same person._

 _Hope you enjoyed this chapter, please let me know if you did – I love feedback! Next one up when it's typed!_


	4. Out of Time

Chapter 4 – Out of Time

They couldn't get very far with the ki lessons that night, even if Yamcha did give the impression that he'd keep going until he passed out. Trunks knew for a fact that this wouldn't be conductive to him learning anything, though – he'd pulled the same stunt himself on numerous occasions as a kid, trying to get stronger as fast as possible so he could defeat the androids. At the time Gohan had let him, allowing Trunks to learn for himself that he actually did better if he stopped _before_ his vision started going double.

In this situation, though, he didn't have that luxury. It was ironic, really – he had a time machine, and he _still_ didn't have enough time. Or, rather, he didn't have enough nutrient tablets. Once those ran out… he wouldn't be able to stay, food would be too big an issue. So he'd told Yamcha they'd start early the next day, washed off in his bucket of water, and gone to bed. Yamcha had gone along with it, albeit with poor grace.

They couldn't start right away the next day, either, much as Yamcha wanted to. There were other things the bandit had to do first – prepare some of the meat he'd gotten so that it would last until it could be eaten, do a patrol of his territory. He also dropped a bundle of fabric on Trunks' head on his way out. It turned out to be a tunic and pants of light brown fabric with a violet sash. Trunks wrinkled his brow, confused.

"What's this for?"

The bandit rolled his eyes. "I'm not the only one looking kinda worn when it comes to clothes, Mirai. Those are better for the desert, anyway." He decapsulized a small plane and popped open the cockpit, "I'm doing a quick sweep today, so be ready when I come back, okay?"

Trunks looked at the clothes, then at the bandit and snorted. "Aren't lords supposed to be gracious or something?"

Yamcha waved a hand dismissively as Pu'ar buckled in next to him. "I tend to ignore that one."

Trunks just shook his head and went to work on the fridge some more. It was nice to change into clean clothes afterwards, though, as opposed to staying in the grimy ones or switching for the spare set he had (and, with what had happened, he'd suddenly been glad for his mother's constant fussing about how quickly saiyans could go through clothes and making sure he carried spares). And, he had to admit, he was looking forward to the lessons as well. Because Yamcha was enthusiastic and, if the sheer number of weapons and vehicles he knew how to use were any indicator, he was a fast learner.

OoOoOoOoO

And so ki lessons became part of the routine of Kung Pao Rock. And Trunks had been right – Yamcha was a fast, avid learner, and not shy about asking questions, or – now that the prospect was available – challenging Trunks to spar, both hand-to-hand and with swords, and Trunks could see the other teen's style slowly evolving and improving each time they fought.

And when Yamcha finally got in tune with his ki sense…

The look of wonder on his face as he stared at his own hands, at Trunks, at the world around them as though seeing it for the first time… it was beautiful. Pu'ar had come down, chattering excitedly about a trio of travellers she'd just spotted, but Yamcha had waved her off, especially when he heard it was a pretty young group.

"We don't prey on babies," he said off-handedly, staring at her as well, smiling, "We've got enough stashed for the moment, and if I keep training like this… the Budokai's being held next year, and I could have a chance at winning it if I entered! A pot like that – we wouldn't need to take tribute for _ages_ , we'd just have to keep others out of Diablo!" then he laughed, "Damn, I can't get over this ki thing – Pu'ar, you're like a lantern on a moonless night! And Mirai," he turned to him, "You're like a banked fire. Are you holding back or something?"

Trunks rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "Yeah. One of the things you learn to do once your ki is high enough is supress it – it makes it easier to do stuff on a day-to-day basis."

"Huh." Yamcha gave him a considering once-over, "You're pretty strong right now – how powerful can you get?"

"Really." Trunks gave a half grin then looked away, "My circumstances are a little different than yours, though. I'm not- I've got a… a bloodline, I guess you'd call it, that lets me go beyond the usual limits of humanity."

Yamcha stared at him for a moment, then his eyes widened and he snapped his fingers. "You're not fully human, are you?"

Trunks slammed his expression neutral as best he could. "What makes you say that?"

"Besides that crazy ship thing you arrived in?" Yamcha quirked an eyebrow then… looked away for some reason, almost like he was embarrassed. "You remember the other day, I kinda walked in on you getting dressed after your bath, and you asked if I'd seen anything, and I said no?"

"Yeah?" Trunks replied cautiously.

Yamcha turned beet red. "I lied. I saw, um," he gestured at his own lower back, "That fuzzy bump thing you have."

It was Trunks' turn to blush, and he didn't resist the urge to bury his face in his hands. His tail. Yamcha had seen his tail, in all its pathetic, two-inch-long, lavender glory. …he knew he should have cut the damn thing off, he _knew_ it, but… it was the only real physical tell he had of his saiyan heritage, other than his ability to go super saiyan, and he hadn't learned how to do that until… Well, his tail he'd _always_ had, even if it _was_ stunted and the wrong colour, a connection to the father he'd never known. And it wasn't like it was usually a problem – his clothes hid is well enough, and it wasn't like people went around _looking_ for this sort of thing-

-and Yamcha was still staring at him, shuffling his feet awkwardly. "You don't have to tell me the details, you know," he said, tone equally awkward, "I know about having things you don't talk about. But… you're not all the way human, are you?"

"No," Trunks admitted, "I'm not. I'm only half human."

"And the not-human half – that's the reason you're so strong?"

"It's a big factor, yeah."

"Oh." Yamcha sounded… disappointed, and Trunks wilted a bit. "So… those ki tricks you can do, the stuff with the ropes when you first came – pure humans can't get that strong?"

"What? No!" Trunks looked back up at Yamcha, startled, "That is, pure humans can get _amazingly_ strong, most people have no _idea_ just how much potential they have! My teacher always told me that my human half is the reason I have so much potential in the first place – my other half lets me get power fast, but the human half means there's no limit to how high I can go." He went over and put his hands on Yamcha's shoulders, "You have no _idea_ how far humanity can go, you're barely even in the foothills!"

Yamcha stared at him. "Really?"

"Yeah," Trunks nodded and his heart started beating again as he saw the fire in Yamcha's eyes rekindle.

"Show me, then! You say I'm not even in the foothills? Give me a glimpse of the mountain I'm climbing!"

Trunks hesitated, then nodded. "I can't go all-out, or even too high at all, and I can't tell you why, but here." He backed up aways, then drew on his ki, pulling out maybe a tenth of what he had outside of super saiyan.

Yamcha still looked blown away. "And… _I_ can get that strong?"

"Stronger." Trunks recapped his power and gave a shy grin.

"Damn." Yamcha sat down abruptly, then laughed and grinned up at Trunks. "Don't enter the coming Budokai, okay? Enter the next one, give me some time to catch up, and we'll give them all a fight worth seeing, right?"

Trunks gave a crooked grin, even as his heart twanged unhappily. "Don't worry. I won't be anywhere near the Budokai."

OoOoOoOoO

Time passed… too swiftly. Trunks stared at his almost empty bottle of nutrient tablets and cursed softly to himself. He shouldn't have stayed so long. He shouldn't have let himself get so _attached_. But he had, and now leaving was going to hurt so much…

"You're going, then?"

Trunks jumped, almost dropping the bottle, and turned to see Yamcha standing in the doorway, hands in his pockets. Trunks swallowed and put the bottle on the end table by the couch he'd been sleeping on. "You knew?"

"Yeah," the bandit walked into the room, habitual grin gone for once, "The fridge has been almost done for ages, and you're not the only one who's been keeping an eye on those things." He nodded at the bottle.

Trunks sighed. 'Yeah. I- I have to leave, soon. Tomorrow would be best, to be honest."

"Ah." Yamcha looked away, scratched his neck. "Say, Mirai?"

"Yeah?"

"If- say I came to the city," Yamcha looked uncharacteristically nervous, "If I did, would it be okay if I came to visit you?"

Trunks looked away. Why oh _why_ had he thought staying so long was a good idea again? "Why would you do that – hell, _how_ would you do that?! You don't even know my real name-!"

"Trunks."

The demi-saiyan's head snapped up to stare at Yamcha, slack-jawed. "How did you find that out?"

Yamcha gave a shy smile and shrugged. "I've known the whole time. It's written on the bottom of your capsule case – Trunks Briefs."

"But…" Trunks floundered, "You- you never said anything…"

"I told you, I know about having things you don't want to talk about. And at first I really didn't care. But now," he gave Trunks a hopeful look, "Please let me come see you? Or say you'll come back to see me, Mirai Trunks?"

"…I can't," Trunks choked out, miserable, "And you can't either."

"Why not?" Yamcha demanded, growing angry, "Because I'm a bandit? Because-"

"Because I won't be there!" Trunks interrupted before he could get too into it, "I'm- oh kami, Yamcha, I'm from the future!"

Yamcha gaped. " _ **What**_?!"

And Trunks closed his eyes, gave the finger to fate, took a deep breath, and told him everything. Saiyans, the Z Warriors, the androids, everything. At the end of it they were both sitting on the floor, subdued.

"And once I leave, I can't come back," Trunks finished quietly, "It would just create a new timeline I needed to save. I only had enough power for three trips, anyway. The first was supposed to be for the initial warning, the second to make sure they win the fight, the third to get home again. I'm probably going to have to spend more time in the past now, anyway – the machine takes three years to acquire a full charge, and it only runs when the tank is full after it's been emptied. And I wasted a trip when the coordinates went wrong and I came here."

"So…" Yamcha said slowly, "The next time I see you, if I see you at all, it'll be over ten years from now? And then you'll be gone again, then back once more for a little, and then you're gone forever?"

"Yeah," Trunks looked away so he didn't have to see the pain in Yamcha's face, then stood. "I wish there was another way. We can't even meet in my timeline because, even if you're similar, we never met like this in that timeline, and you don't know me."

"Yeah…" Yamcha got up as well, then glanced at him. "Hey, what's your favorite food?"

"What?" Trunks looked back at him, confused at the abrupt change in topic.

"Your favorite food," Yamcha repeated, "Tell me and I'll make it for supper tonight. Come on, I just did a supply run the other day."

Trunks swallowed. "I- I liked those meat skewers you made that time – with the cheese sauce? Could you make those?"

"Sure." Yamcha gave him a half smile as he walked towards the door, and Trunks did his best to return it, though it felt shaky and brittle around the edges.

Why had he thought staying here was a good idea?

Why?

Just _why_?

OoOoOoOoO

Supper was delicious, if a little subdued. Trunks got the fridge set up in the kitchen and Yamcha transferred the food into it from the capsule fridge while Pu'ar and Trunks washed and dried the dishes. Afterwards they all went and lay on top of Kung Pao Rock, gazing at the stars.

OoOoOoOoO

Trunks felt heavy the next morning, and more than a little like an idiot for getting himself into this mess, for wanting what he'd known from the _beginning_ he'd known he couldn't have.

Yamcha and Pu'ar came outside to watch as he decapsulized the time machine. It deployed with a sharp 'poi.'

"Hey, Mirai?"

Trunks looked over his shoulder at Yamcha's call. "Yeah?"

The self-proclaimed bandit lord gave him a crooked grin. "Thanks."

Trunks looked down, ashamed. "For what?"

"For the fridge. For showing me what I can become. For coming here." He could hear the smile in Yamcha's voice, along with an underlying layer of sadness. "I'm glad I met you."

Trunks snorted. "For all we know I just ruined your future."

"I'm still glad," Yamcha walked forward a step, "I'm going to miss you, but I'd rather miss you than not have met you, so I don't regret it. And that's the important thing, right? No regrets."

Trunks swallowed, then straightened, turned, and walked back over to Yamcha. "You're right."

Yamcha's expression grew nervous as Trunks put his hands on his shoulders. "Mirai, what are you doing?"

Trunks looked him dead in the eye. "No regrets." And then he leaned forward and kissed Yamcha on the cheek. The bandit froze, and was staring at him with wide eyes when he pulled back. Trunks gave a sad smile. So, the answer would have been 'no.' At least he knew now. He let go and backed up. In fact, it was probably better this way. He turned to go back to his time machine-

-and stopped because a rather insistent hand was on his wrist. "Hey, wait a minute!" Yamcha protested, cheeks pink as Trunks turned back to him, "That's a thing? That's an _option_? Give a guy a minute to figure things out, why don't you?!" he glared, then bit his lip. "And hold still, I've never done this before."

And he leaned forward and kissed Trunks on the lips, his hands coming to rest on Trunks' shoulders, and Trunks blinked, then let his eyes drift close and his arms go around Yamcha's waist, then one of them opened their mouth and the other followed suit and when the hormones lifted again Trunks discovered Yamcha was pressed up against Kung Pao Rock with his arms around Trunks' shoulders and Trunks himself had somehow wound up sucking on Yamcha's collarbone, knee back between the bandit's legs while Yamcha squirmed and whimpered a bit but most definitely did _not_ object this time. His eyes opened as Trunks broke away, both their faces flushed,

"Don't go."

"No," Trunks panted, "Come with me."

"Won't," Yamcha shook his head like he was trying to clear it, then spoke again, "Won't that mess up the timeline even more?"

"I don't care," Trunks said, clinging to the other teen, "I've already changed things just by being here and teaching you, and- and how much difference can it make? If you come with me?"

Yamcha looked tempted. "What about Pu'ar?"

"She can come too," Trunks said recklessly, "If it causes problems… I'm a Briefs! And Mom always says there's no problem a Briefs can't solve with proper motivation – and she built a time machine!"

Yamcha hesitated another moment… then nodded. "I'll do it – I'll come with you."

"You're sure?" Trunks asked, suddenly nervous, "I can't bring you back if you change your mind."

Yamcha leaned in and kissed his jaw. "I'm a survivor," he said quietly into Trunks' ear, "And, of all the things in this world, only sand is eternal. Diablo will always be here for me, and as long as I'm alive, I'll find a way to work myself to the top again, somehow. Besides, it's not like I'd be alone – I've always got Pu'ar. Right, Pu'ar?"

"Right, Lord Yamcha…" came the slightly stunned reply from not too far away and Trunks turned red as he realised that the epic make-out session he'd just enjoyed had had an audience.

"There you go then," Yamcha smiled, "And I've got you now, too. I _do_ have you, don't I?" he added, sounding a little worried.

"Yeah," Trunks reassured him warmly, "You have me, if you want me."

"I do," Yamcha confirmed, smile widening, "After all, I've never stolen a heart before – and I hear those things are valuable." He laughed as Trunks made an indignant noise and kissed him again, very lightly, "Let me go now, Mirai – if I'm going to the future, there's some stuff I need to grab first."

OoOoOoOoO

Trunks waited while Yamcha got his things together and closed up Kung Pao Rock, emptying the fridge back into the capsule fridge, putting storm shutters over the windows to keep too much sand from blowing in, leaving a few notes about the exact workings of certain mechanisms here and there.

"It's a good place," he explained when Trunks asked, "Someone had it before me, and someone will have it after. And it's been a good home to me – I want to give it the best chance it has to be that again to the next person who comes."

In the end, he brought a satchel with him, filled with an assortment of capsules, some in cases, some carefully wrapped in some old sashes and his headscarf, filled to not quite full. Trunks was about to comment about the extra space when Pu'ar floated up holding a small box with 'Pu'ar's Stuff' written on the top. Yamcha accepted it and slotted it neatly into the waiting space, the satchel now perfectly full. Some weapons and vehicles, clothes and bedding, all his cookbooks, some odds and ends, a few capsules Trunks didn't know the contents of, everything Yamcha felt he couldn't leave behind or might need, with room left over for Pu'ar's things. Trunks' grandfather really had been a genius.

Figuring out the logistics of fitting everyone in the time machine was a bit of a trick (solved with Trunks sitting on Yamcha's lap so he could still drive and Pu'ar nestled beside the seat in the footwell), but finally they were off, heading towards Trunks' original destination. Sure it was a little uncomfortable, but it was going to be worth it. And this might even work out better than leaving Yamcha behind in regards to altering the time stream any further. After all, how could he change things if he wasn't there to do it?

OoOoOoOoO

Trunks stared at the man in front of him. He was extremely tall, with wild, spiky black hair past his knees, and was wearing a charcoal grey tank top and a green kilt.

"Hey, Mirai?" Yamcha whispered from where he was standing behind him (the man's ki presence was… immense), "You didn't mention anyone like this."

"That's because Mom didn't _tell me_ about anyone like him," Trunks hissed back nervously.

The stranger watched them, smirking slightly. Yamcha hesitated a moment, eyes locked on the tail swinging casually behind the man. "Oh. So… does this mean we broke the past or the future?"

Trunks closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with a sigh. "I really don't know."

OoOoOoOoO

 _So, how many of you were gearing up to curse my name to the skies right up until the kissing started? ;P_

 _Yamcha uses four separate vehicles in the initial storyline of Dragon Ball – an air bike, a car, a sky car, and a plane. He also demonstrates proficiency with a sword, a rocket launcher, and hand-to-hand combat, and reveals a fair knowledge of other existing martial artists and some of their strengths and signature moves. Why do we characterize this guy as stupid again?_

 _I characterize Yamcha as being pretty under-socialized during his bandit days, especially in terms of romance. He has some vague concepts of it and how it should work, mostly from some old books he has, and a few ideas of what he thinks he'd like, but it's a mostly nebulous concept to him, meaning he doesn't always pick up on cues. Then again, it also means he has absolutely no pre-conceived notions in regards to what 'should' be going on in terms of gender with relationships, so his reaction to stuff is generally 'why doesn't anyone TELL ME this stuff?!' as opposed to 'but that's not how it's supposed to go!' To be honest, I think he did a pretty good job, going straight from 'wait, guys are allowed to kiss other guys?' to 'oh THAT'S what's been going on with Mirai – I'm attracted to him! I should do something about that!' Talk about a smooth transition!_

 _It is my headcanon that Trunks, regardless of timeline, has a fuzzy little lavender bump of a tail. It won't let him go Oozaru or anything, but it's there, and he kinda likes it. (Goten just has a little patch of brown fur.) And Yamcha's gonna keep calling him 'Mirai' as often as not, 'cause it's his pet/nick name for Trunks now._

 _My headcanon for gaining strength is that saiyans get strong very fast, but they have a finite level they can reach, which varies from saiyan to saiyan, and once they hit that point they have to either hit super saiyan or resort to self-mutilation (to achieve zenkai) in order to progress further. Humans, on the other hand, progress much more slowly, but in turn have no upper limit on their strength and, if given enough time, could eventually outstrip a saiyan. Furthermore, if a human's 'hidden potential' is unlocked, they progress much faster, though still not as fast as a saiyan. Saiyans do not have 'hidden potential,' as they are always training at full strength._

 _And finally… hi, Raditz. What, did you guys_ _ **really**_ _think I'd write a fic and leave him out? He's in pretty much everything I do. ;) Also, finally,_ _ **finally**_ _, one of my most treasured mental images of Raditz is revealed… him in a kilt. Mmmmm~ legs._


	5. Break Time

Quick note: Thanks to all of you who sent me messages as guests – I read them and really appreciated them! Sadly, ff.n doesn't allow you to respond to 'guest' style messages, so I couldn't say thanks. Until now. So I am! THANKS! ^U^

Also, just let you all know… this story is finished, in the sense that the entire thing is written out. It's simply written out in writing books, as everything I write gets done by hand first and then typed. New chapters of this will continue to appear at the speed I type them up, and that may take longer sometimes, depending on real life and editing, but there WILL come a day when this thing is finished. ;)

Chapter 5 – Break time

 _Trunks stared at the man in front of him. He was extremely tall, with wild, spiky black hair past his knees, and was wearing a charcoal grey tank top and a green kilt._

" _Hey, Mirai?" Yamcha whispered from where he was standing behind him (the man's ki presence was… immense), "You didn't mention anyone like this."_

" _That's because Mom didn't tell me about anyone like him," Trunks hissed back nervously._

 _The stranger watched them, smirking slightly. Yamcha hesitated a moment, eyes locked on the tail swinging casually behind the man. "Oh. So… does this mean we broke the past or the future?"_

 _Trunks closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with a sigh. "I really don't know."_

At this point the man folded his arms with a snort. "So, are you two actually going to say anything to me, or should I come back later?"

Trunks turned a little red from embarrassment. "Ah, sorry about that. We were- I was- um…"

"We're looking for a guy called Son Goku," Yamcha interrupted, leaning over Trunks' shoulder, "Do you know him?"

The guy raised an eyebrow, "You're joking, right?"

Both teens shook their heads, as did Pu'ar, who was clinging to Yamcha's shoulder.

The man snorted again, looking somewhere between annoyed and amused. "Well, you ran into the right guy. Name's Raditz – I'm his older brother."

Trunks stared at him for a moment, slack-jawed, then turned to Yamcha. "Just how crucial to the timeline _were_ you?!"

"How should I know? I left before I found out!" Yamcha shot back, "Besides, who says it was me? It could have been Pu'ar with the world-changing destiny or something!" he leaned against Trunks from behind, lowering his voice, "Doesn't matter, anyway. I'm non-returnable, remember? You're stuck with me."

"Yeah, I know, it's just…" Trunks buried his face in his hands, "Oh kami, I broke time…"

"Yeah, you're _definitely_ here to see Kakarrot," Raditz rolled his eyes as attention shifted back to him, "Come on, most of the group's back at Capsule Corp, including my idiot brother – I'll take you there."

"Uh, isn't Goku still… off in space?" Trunks asked.

Raditz raised an eyebrow at him, then shook his head. "You know, I'm not even going to ask how you know about that. Of course you know – all the weird shit happens on this planet." He lifted into the air, "You're probably planning to explain it all to us anyway, no point in going over it twice. Though, so you know, Kakarrot's been back for over a year now."

"What?!" Trunks gaped, even as he followed Raditz into the sky, Pu'ar in his arms, Yamcha clinging to his shoulders (they hadn't gotten around to flight lessons yet).

"…you're sure that machine's going to get us back to the time you left, right?" Yamcha asked quietly as they rose up.

"Pretty sure…" Trunks swallowed, calling out to Raditz, "Hey, the year – it's 763, right?"

"764, actually."

"Well, at least it's closer than last time," Yamcha offered helpfully.

"Which makes his statement only maybe _half_ as chronologically impossible as before," Trunks sighed.

OoOoOoOoO

Seeing Capsule Corp was an experience in ecstasy and agony for Trunks. He'd been there a few times in his own timeline, scavenging, and even then, in ruins, it was amazing – a labyrinth of preservation and decay from which he always fled with new tools and treasures. He'd often imagined how it had looked in its glory days, smooth and whole – his mom didn't have any pictures of the full facility from that era. Seeing it now… it just underscored how grand a place it was, and how very far it had fallen in his own world. He swallowed, his throat trying to close as he did so.

There were people in the yard, he noticed – a pair of women in identical blue dresses, one blonde, one black-haired, a short, bald man who was probably Krillin from his mom's descriptions, a black-haired boy who looked like he would one day be painfully familiar, a woman with her hair in a bun, a toddler on her hip, and an aura of quiet danger, a younger version of his mom, a man that could only be his father, and, laughing at whatever the saiyan prince was saying, Son Goku.

"Yo, Kakarrot!" Raditz bellowed as he flew in to land, "You've got visitors!" he dropped down in the yard in a slight crouch, and the woman with her hair in a bun shook her fist at him.

"Raditz, hold your kilt _down_ when you land!"

"Ah, ease up, I'm wearing pants underneath."

" _Those are only considered pants in space!_ "

"Or the beach," Bulma added cheerfully, walking over to look at Trunks, Yamcha, and Pu'ar, "Who are these three, then? They look a little young for you."

Yamcha made a muffled sound and stayed behind Trunks, who turned pink at the implication.

Raditz just scoffed. "I already said they're here to see Kakarrot. Also, congratulations."

Bulma blinked, then narrowed her eyes, "For what?"

Raditz grinned as the rest of the group walked nearer and slung an arm around Trunks (and Yamcha as well as a result), "It's a boy! I'm sure you and Vegeta are very proud."

"I- _**what**_?!" Bulma gaped at him, as did most of the rest of the group. Vegeta looked particularly flabbergasted.

…actually, it was more like _almost_ everyone looked stunned…

"Wow, congrats, Bulma, Vegeta!" Goku beamed, then looked confused, "He looks pretty old, though – I didn't think you guys had _known_ each other that long!"

"We _haven't_!" Vegeta snapped, stomping over to the taller saiyan and looking like he had every intent of picking a fight right then and there, but he didn't get a chance to because Trunks, still goggling at Raditz, finally managed to dislodge the words stuck in his throat and get them out into the world to do their damage.

" _ **How did you know?!**_ "

The words had come out pretty much of their own volition, leaving Trunks to slap a hand over his mouth and wish they had remained stuck in his throat forever. The group from the current timeline was staring at him again, and Yamcha rested his forehead on Trunks' neck with a sigh.

"You know, I was under the impression you were planning to be subtle about all this?"

"Be quiet, I had a plan! And it was a good one!" Trunks snapped back sulkily.

"Mmm," Yamcha leaned closer and spoke softly in his ear, "Are you regretting bringing me?"

Trunks sighed and leaned back as a pair of arms wrapped themselves hesitantly around his chest and Pu'ar from behind. "No. I interfered in your timeline first. Fixing things was always my responsibility. I just hope I still can…" speaking more loudly, he turned his attention back to Raditz and asked again, "How did you know?"

Raditz looked smug, "Unlike my brother and his highness, I actually _pay attention_ to my nose. You carry scent tags from Bulma and Vegeta, the same as Goten and Gohan carry scent tags from Kakarrot and Chichi."

Trunks digested this for a moment, "Oh. I guess that makes- wait, _Goten_? Who's Goten?"

"My baby brother," the boy who had to be Gohan spoke up proudly, "He's turning one soon."

"You… have a brother?" Trunks felt like his head was spinning. He leaned back against Yamcha and ran a hand through his hair, "This is crazy. This is _all_ crazy…"

"Oh? And who are you, anyway?" Vegeta growled, apparently tired of the haphazard path the conversation had been taking thus far.

Trunks looked at him and swallowed. He'd been planning to tell Goku, and only Goku, who he was and what was coming, in an attempt to preserve the timeline as much as possible so they wouldn't have to worry about it changing to the point of unrecognizability and thus rendering his warning moot. Unfortunately, he seemed to have already done that. _And_ they knew who he was, so no point in hiding it, really… "Like he said, I'm your son – yours and Bulma's. I came here from twe- nineteen years in the future-"

" _Definitely_ Bulma's," Krillin muttered under his breath.

"- _nineteen years in the future_ ," Trunks frowned at the interruption, "To warn you all…" he hesitated, shook his head. "I don't know it it's even worth saying. So much has already changed, who knows if it's even going to happen…"

"Might as well tell us," the blonde woman he didn't know said. Beside her, a dark-haired woman who could have been her twin save hair, eyes, and manner, nodded. "Yes, we're all interested to hear! And since you went to the trouble of getting here in the first place, you might as well."

Trunks sighed, but continued, "In a couple years from now – well, in my timeline, anyway – a pair of androids appeared and began to wipe out all sentient life on the planet. At the time I left, about a third of Earth's population remains, and I'm the only one left who can fight them."

"What about _us_? Or him?" Krillin chipped in again, gesturing at the Z Warriors and Yamcha, "He looks like he's got some potential."

"Um…" Trunks looked over his shoulder at Yamcha and blushed, "I… didn't come to the right point in the timeline at first, the time machine malfunctioned. And, um…"

"He came along for the adventure?" Goku asked cheerfully.

"Sort of," Trunks mumbled, not meeting the man's eyes, "Anyway, I'm the only one to fight because I'm- I'm the only one left." He was quiet for a moment, letting this sink in.

"Wait, we're _dead_?" Krillin squawked, "Even Goku and Vegeta and Piccolo?!"

"Ahem," Raditz coughed, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh shut it, hairball, Piccolo's stronger than you and we all know it," the blonde woman snapped and Raditz huffed but didn't argue.

"Anyway," Trunks continued, "Yes, you all- all died. Well, those of you who were there," he corrected, "I… don't think Raditz existed in my timeline – my mom never mentioned you. My dad led the final assault against the androids – Piccolo was part of it, along with Krillin and two others – a man called Tien and another called Yamcha. I guess you don't know them?"

"Tien's working on his farm with Chaotzu," Goku answered, "There was a storm or something, so he's late. I don't know anyone called 'Yamcha,' though." He tilted his head to the side, "There were really no survivors? What about me? Didn't I fight?"

Trunks looked away, "I guess… there was one survivor. Gohan… he lived. He's the one who trained me but- he died a few years ago. Trying to take the androids down. Goku, you… you never made it to the final battle. You never even saw the androids – you don't know it yet, but you've got a heart disease. And in a year or so it's going to kill you."

This statement was met with slack-jawed silence.

Goku frowned, looking annoyed. "Well that's a downer."

"It's not going to happen now, though!" Trunks hastily added, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a small bottle, "Mom synthesized an antidote for the disease awhile back – just take this when it starts and you should be fine!" he offered it to Goku, who went to take it only to find his hands suddenly full of Goten as Chichi handed their youngest son to him and plucked the bottle from Trunks' hand.

"I'll take that, thank-you! Knowin' you, Goku, you'd put it 'somewhere safe' and when the time came I'd have to tear up the whole house t' find it again!" she stated, and Goku laughed sheepishly. She gave him a slight smile, then turned to Bulma, "And what we _should_ do is give this t' _you_ , Bulma, so you can see if it'll work on him. So much has changed accordin' t' th' boy, who's to say the disease hasn't as well? Thank-you, though," she added, turning back to Trunks as Bulma accepted the bottle with a speculative gleam in her eye, "We're in your debt for this."

"It's okay," Trunks said, sounding melancholy, "I came back in time to do this, after all, to warn you so you could be ready when the androids came and things wouldn't happen like they did in my timeline. Only… who knows if they'll even exist now?" he ran a hand through his hair gloomily, "The other reason I came back was so that I could see how you defeated them, if they had any weaknesses I could exploit in my timeline. But I guess…" he shook his head.

There was another moment of silence. Then-

"Actually," the dark-haired woman said hesitantly, "We, um, we already defeated the androids."

Trunks was quiet for a moment. Then, eyes slightly glazed, he turned to her and said, "What."

"Yeah," the blonde twin nodded, the red scarf in her hair bobbing as she did so, "They showed up about six months ago. It was a… weird… battle."

Trunks blinked, shook his head, and stepped towards them before visibly stopping himself, staring with desperate eyes, "Did you win? What am I saying, of course you did, you're all still alive," he ran his hands through his hair, then looked around at them all with pleading eyes. "How?" he begged, "How did you do it?"

"It- er… it won't help you, what we did," Krillin said, looking embarrassed for some reason, "You won't be able to replicate it in your world."

"Why not?!" Trunks demanded, letting go of Pu'ar and moving out of Yamcha's arms, towards Krillin, "What could you possibly have done that my mom and I can't?!"

"We threw Krillin at them," Raditz said simply.

"…you _**what**_?"

"He means it literally, too," Krillin grumbled, folding his arms and looking sulky, "The big hairball just grabbed me by the head out of nowhere and flung me at them!" he glared at Raditz, who shrugged, unrepentant.

"It worked, didn't it?"

"You had no idea it would!"

"I played a hunch."

"Krillin, what did you _do_?" Trunks interrupted, half demanding, half begging, "Even in super saiyan I can't touch them! Please, just… _please_."

To his surprise, most of the group shot Krillin surreptitious glances and snickered. Krillin, for his part, stared at Trunks for a moment, then sighed, scratching his head and looking annoyed. "I don't remember, okay? I panicked."

"You… panicked?" Yamcha asked, frowning over Trunks' shoulder in confusion.

Krillin shrugged helplessly. "Sometimes I babble when I'm scared, and this was one of those times. Apparently I said some stuff? And was really convincing? Look, all I know is one minute I was lying on the ground and staring up at blue-eyed death, the next I was at Kame House and 18 was arguing with Oolong about his underwear collection and 17 was on the beach flirting with a mermaid and Master Roshi was giving me a very unsubtle thumbs up."

As Trunks gaped at him, Yamcha leaned forward slightly, "Um, Mirai? Isn't Krillin dead in your timeline?"

"Yeah," Trunks nodded numbly.

"So… that's really not going to work, is it?"

"No…" he shook his head, thoughts a turmoil. He'd doomed the Earth. He'd acted selfishly, like a child, and everyone in his timeline was going to die because of it. Even if he'd tried the secondary plan of borrowing Goku… his mother must have forgotten how big the saiyan was, because even if it were just him and Trunks, there was no way the time machine would hold both of them, and especially not Yamcha and Pu'ar as well. His knees gave out and he sat down abruptly, feeling sick. What was he going to do now? And Yamcha- he couldn't just leave him here, but if he took him along, he'd be taking him to his death-

Raditz, meanwhile, had been conversing quietly with Bulma while Trunks had his silent meltdown, and was now looking at the youth consideringly. "Hey, kid – were you born with a tail?"

"A tail?" Trunks looked up with hollow eyes, then gave a snort of bitter laughter, "Sort of. More of a fuzzy stump than anything else."

The tall saiyan nodded, expression still mostly serious, though his lips quirked. "That might be enough. If not, eh, no harm. Stand up."

"Why?" Trunks gave him a baleful look.

Raditz rolled his eyes and came to crouch in front of him, "You need to defeat the androids in your timeline, right? And for that you need destructive power, not finesse, right?"

"Yeah," Trunks nodded warily.

Raditz's smile was sharp, "Then if that's the case, I know a good trick that just might help you, but to know if it'll work for you or not you need to _stand up_. Or do you _want_ your world to burn?"

"Raditz! Don't be so-" Chichi began, but Trunks had shot to his feet, glaring.

"Tell me!"

Raditz smirked and stood as well. "This might not work. If it does, you'll have to stay until you learn how to use it, and that could take awhile. Still game?"

"I've got a time machine – 'how long' isn't an issue."

"You think this'll work?" the blonde twin asked before Raditz could respond, tone more speculative than disapproving. The taller man shrugged.

"Worth a shot."

"And if it doesn't?" the dark-haired twin asked, looking concerned.

Raditz shrugged again, "I dunno, throw him to King Kai for a year and see what _he_ can do with him. If this doesn't work it's someone else's turn to think of something."

"What, _what's_ going on exactly?" Yamcha interrupted, shaking a bit but holding his ground and even moving to stand in front of Trunks as the attention of several extremely powerful beings came to rest on him.

"Yamcha, what are you doing?!" Trunks snapped, "I came to the past for one reason, and that was to-"

Yamcha cut him off, though, as he spun to face him, "I'm doing what _you_ **should be** doing!" he snapped back, glaring, "Kami, don't they have _stories_ in the future?! Because I may not know a lot, but power, power like he's talking? It's never free – _**never**_! There's always strings attached somewhere, **always**!" he put his hands on Trunks' shoulders and his expression went pleading, "We're still in the past, we have _time_. Why not just train here? You've got the world's greatest warriors and, hell, maybe even the androids themselves! Why not take advantage of that and _learn_ from them?"

"Who exactly _are_ you, anyway?" Raditz interrupted, one hand falling on the bandit's shoulder, "We haven't heard how _you_ fit into all this just yet."

Yamcha swallowed a little drily, not willing to back down but not quite sure how to explain his role either.

Fortunately he didn't have to.

Bulma did it for him.

"Oh Raditz, isn't it _obvious_? And you say you're so good with people," she smirked, sauntering over to join them with a coy smile, "He's Trunks' boyfriend." She put a finger under Yamcha's chin and tilted it up a little, "He's a cutie, too. Trunks, you obviously inherited my _excellent_ taste."

"Muh- guh-" Yamcha goggled, eyes widening in terror and his face turning scarlet. In a move fast enough that even the warriors in the group had a hard time following it, he darted behind Trunks, using him as a shield. " _Hide me_!"

"Wait, so you stand up to _me_ but _Bulma_ you run from?" Raditz demanded, sounding affronted.

"Sounds legit," Krillin mumbled from the side.

Trunks ignored them, turning to face Yamcha instead, anger and fear and despair momentarily forgotten. "What was _that_?"

Yamcha's face was still red and he was hunched in on himself somewhat, Pu'ar suddenly bobbing by his shoulder and looking unusually protective. He grinned at Trunks, a small, mortified expression. "So I, uh, may have this- this _thing_ that- um- pops up sometimes and-"

"Yamcha," Trunks put his hands on his shoulders, and the bandit wilted a bit, hunching in deeper on himself.

"I… may be incredibly scared of girls?" he asked more than answered, "Not little ones!" he added at Trunks' expression, "I'm not some creep or whatever, and- and not when they're _really_ old, but, it's just- I never know what to say around them so I choke and my brain cuts off and- and they're just _scary_ , okay?!" he peered up at Trunks, face entirely crimson, "Sorry?"

"Oh Lord Yamcha…" Pu'ar sighed, the image of the world-weary best friend who was always there, even when their corresponding best friend was being a bit of an idiot.

Trunks, for his part, stared at the two of them for a moment longer, then leaned his face into Yamcha's shoulder and laughed so hard his eyes watered. Yamcha hesitantly put his arms around Trunks and held onto him until he stopped. Finally, Trunks straightened, wiping his eyes, and gave Yamcha a light kiss. "Thanks, I needed that. And… thanks for stopping me from doing something without knowing all the details. Normally I've got more sense than that."

Yamcha shrugged with a bit of a grin, "Hey, you've got the whole world to worry about. Me, I'm more selfish – I only care about Pu'ar and you."

"Flirt," Trunks snorted, but didn't protest or object when Yamcha grinned and leaned in close to whisper 'you like it' in his ear. He just grinned and turned-

-and realized that he'd once again had an audience for what should have been a rather private moment. Vegeta had wandered off, as had the Son family, Krillin, and the blonde woman, but Bulma, Raditz, and the dark-haired twin were still there. Raditz saw they had the teens' attention again, looked over his shoulder, and called out, "Oi, they're done now!" as Trunks turned almost as red as Yamcha had been, though he managed to talk anyway.

"This technique you're offering, what is it?"

Raditz gave him a considering look, but answered, "It's called the Oozaru form, and it's the secret might of the saiyan race. Well, the one we knew about," he amended, "Super saiyan kinda blows it out of the water. The thing is, Oozaru form multiplies everything you have by ten – strength, speed, power… Size as well, which isn't as convenient for fighting single opponents as armies or other Oozaru but, eh, worth in in this instance. Because picture this: going Oozaru _on top_ of super saiyan," Raditz's smirk took on a knife-blade sharpness, "Power like that, I don't think there'd be _any_ stopping you."

"And the catch?" Trunks asked, glancing back at Yamcha briefly before refocusing on Raditz.

"Usually there's just one, but in this case there's two," Raditz folded his arms, "The first is the inherent risk of the Oozaru form. Untrained you're just a wild, angry beast in it, destroying everything in your path until you change back. That's not the problem, though – you can learn to break through the haze with training."

"Which you won't be able to provide," Vegeta interrupted from where he'd wandered back over, sneering at Raditz, "You haven't the strength."

"No, but fortunately my idiot younger brother is the strongest thing in the universe, and he can do it for me," Raditz said sweetly in return.

"Raditz," Goku protested from the saiyan's other side.

Raditz just smirked at him. "Bet it would be really hard to do," he said in a slightly mocking tone of voice, "Especially with the size difference. Bet it would be a _huge_ challenge."

Goku opened his mouth, closed it, then frowned and pointed at Raditz, "I want you to know that I'm aware I'm being manipulated, and that that's not why I'm going to agree to this. I'm agreeing because it sounds neat."

"Of course," Raditz purred.

Vegeta snorted. "We'd know if this was even possible if you'd just reach super saiyan already."

Raditz glared at him, "We're not all prodigies, Vegeta, _some of us_ have to settle for being smart. And still able to grow a tail."

"That all sounds pretty straightforward," Trunks interrupted before a fight could break out between the saiyans, "Why not just tell me this from the beginning?"

Raditz turned back to him, face serious, "Because of the second catch. To take on Oozaru form you need a full moon, which we can simulate, and – this is the important bit – a fully grown tail," he folded his arms, "And while I'm fairly certain you should be able to grow one, I'm not _completely_ sure, and I didn't want to dangle hope in front of you like that."

Trunks started a bit, surprised by the vehemence in the tall saiyan's words. "Um, thanks. Really. But… isn't it like Yamcha said – if it doesn't work, I can just train really hard under you guys for awhile? It'd probably be a good idea for me to do that, anyway – it's been a few years since I've had a teacher."

Raditz frowned, tilting his head to the side like he was puzzled, "Well, yeah, you can do all that, but I was talking about the tail thing."

"What." Yamcha said flatly.

"Hey, this is serious business!" Raditz pointed at him, eyes narrowed, "You don't just say you can grow a guy's tail back and then not follow through – tails are _important_! Right Vegeta, Kakarrot?" he looked to either side for support and, finding none in his tail-less companions, threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "So, what, I'm the only one who pays attention to his nose _and_ the only one who properly appreciates having a tail?!"

"It's just a tail," Goku shrugged.

" _It's a limb!_ "

"I miss my tail," Gohan piped up from where he'd come to stand by his uncle's knees. Raditz bent down to ruffle the boy's hair.

"That's because _we're_ the smart ones." He glanced back at Trunks and grinned, "So, how about it, future princeling? Want to see if you can grow a tail?"

"…why not?" Trunks gave a faint grin of his own, turning to Goku and bowing a bit, "And if you would be willing to train me a bit, it would be an honour."

"Sure!" Goku smiled, "It'll be fun! And Raditz can help with the Oozaru stuff!"

"Naturally," Raditz smirked, "Vegeta, too."

"What's that now?" the saiyan prince turned to glare at him, "I've agreed to no such thing!"

Raditz winced and looked away, "Sorry, Vegeta, you're right. I just thought, since you were always the best of us with Oozaru and all, you'd be the most qualified. But if you think Kakarrot and I will do better, you obviously know best. I shouldn't have assumed-"

He stopped talking when Vegeta growled and stomped off. In a flash, Raditz's subservient demeanour was gone and he was smirking at Trunks.

"Like I said, he'll do it."

The blonde woman snorted. "Should we just _all_ volunteer to help train these two right now or should we wait for you to talk us into it?"

"To be fair, I was just going to ask you guys," Raditz said with a half-smile, "It's easier."

The blonde woman rolled her eyes but smirked back after glancing at her dark-haired twin. "Count me in."

"Ah, why not?" Krillin agreed as well, "Could be interesting to be the one teaching for once."

"Wait, 'these two'?" Yamcha poked his head over Trunks' shoulder, "You're including me in this?"

"No, I was talking about the cat, of course we're talking about you!" the woman snapped, obviously annoyed, "Why, you saying you _don't_ want our training?"

Yamcha gulped, "N-no…"

She nodded in satisfaction. "There you go then. Come on, Blackie, let's go snag Tien and the midget."

"Okay," her twin beamed, then turned to Trunks and Yamcha with a polite bow. "We're Lunch, by the way – third student of the Turtle Sen'nin. I look forward to working with you in the future."

"Bring them back here," Bulma added before they could go, "We'll have a group supper and get stuff sorted out."

"Okay, that sounds like a good idea."

With a quick goodbye to the rest of the group, both women lifted into the air and flew off in the same direction. Yamcha let out a quiet sigh of relief as they left.

Krillin grinned, "I guess I'll go talk to 17 and 18 then – might as well get the whole gang in on this, and they've had lots of time to talk to 16 at this point. Nice meeting you, Trunks, Yamcha." And he walked off in the direction of Capsule Corp's main compound.

Trunks and Yamcha exchanged a look, then Yamcha turned to Raditz. "You're the one who actually runs this group, aren't you?"

The long-haired saiyan shrugged, looking smug, "I'm just good with people – it's one of the reasons I survived in Frieza's army." Then he focussed on Trunks. "So, wanna try that tail thing?"

Trunks considered for a moment. "Wouldn't it be better to do the other training first, and use this as a last resort?"

"And have to start over because you've suddenly got a limb you're not used to fighting with?" Raditz raised an eyebrow in challenge.

Trunks frowned at him. "Look, I know it's kind of ridiculous and tiny, but I happen to _like_ my tail, and I don't want to risk it for no reason!"

"Good saiyan attitude," Raditz said approvingly, "Don't worry, though – if this doesn't work, the worst you'll have is a bruise. Now turn around or don't, I'm hungry."

Trunks eyed him again, then turned when Goku winked at him and gave a small nod. Raditz's one hand came to rest on Trunks' shoulder and the youth tensed, but before he could say anything Raditz's _other_ hand had punched into Trunks' lower back and there was a ripping sound and the _oddest_ sensation-

Raditz's hands vanished and Trunks stumbled a bit but didn't fall because there was a weight, a _presence_ behind him that he'd instinctively used as a counterbalance. He looked over his shoulder and… there it was. His tail – long and thick-furred and the exact same colour as his hair. "Oh."

"Holy shit, you have a tail! A real one," Yamcha wandered into his line of sight, carefully keeping Raditz between himself and Bulma, "Can you move it?"

"I… think so?" Trunks replied, trying to figure out how to do that. A couple of minutes of trying to do this with no success resulted in frustration, which, in turn, led to him accidentally lashing his tail, which caught Yamcha in the stomach. The bandit grunted, stumbling backwards and automatically grabbing onto the nearest thing to steady himself. Which happened to be Trunks' tail. Trunks let out a strangled sound as his tail got very thoroughly squeezed and he fell over, taking the still unsteady Yamcha with him in a tangle of limbs that ended with Trunks on his back and Yamcha on top of him, faces inches apart. They both went absolutely red and sprang apart while Raditz laughed at them and Pu'ar flew around Yamcha's head, babbling about whether or not his was all right, while Goku looked on in amusement, and Bulma, with a surreptitious smile, let one hand come to a rest on her stomach.

' _Looks like you're going to be even more fun to meet than I guessed,'_ she thought bemusedly, ' _Though it looks like I'll be telling everyone about you another time.'_

OoOoOoOoO

 _Didn't see_ _ **that one**_ _coming, did ya?_

 _Mirai arrives in 763 in the original storyline. Goku has been back for a year and a half in the new timeline when he arrives in 764. I take my timelines very seriously, even if Toriyama doesn't._

 _Tien doesn't really do parties if he can help it, and 17 and 18 were in the lab talking with 16._

 _Raditz you goddamn sexy space troll, quit taking over the plo- oh, oh yes you are wearing that kilt very nicely, aren't you, yes, it suits you wonderfully, uh huh, yeah, go ahead, do whatever you want… On a more serious note, though, Raditz is one of those characters I see maybe not making a big amount of difference in combat, but who has a huge effect on day-to-day life. Just for starters, he's known Vegeta since the guy was five, so Vegeta literally cannot pull his whole 'brooding space prince' persona off as thoroughly, because Raditz is there going 'hey, remember that time Frieza was giving us a mission and you fell asleep 'cause you'd been training all night even though Nappa told you not to, only no one noticed until we went to leave because you'd managed to hold the kneeling position somehow?' Kinda ruins the mystique. And he's a slightly more tactical thinker than the others in some ways, in that he looks for advantages and exploits the fuck out of them, since that's one of the ways he survived in the Planet Trade._

 _I always picture Raditz as a very social creature – he likes to talk and interact with people – and he seems to have survived an impressively long time in the Planet Trade in spite of having such a relatively low power level, which I put down to being able to adapt well to social situations (and being the only character shown to have exceptional dodging skills). So while Vegeta's brooding in the GR and Goku's off on Mt. Paozu or training somewhere, Raditz is learning about this crazy planet he's on and probably doing a more interactive style of training. And, you know, being a manipulative shit. For the greater good! Sometimes._

 _He's also why the androids showed up early, as it happens – suddenly there were THREE super-powered freaks running around, which lead to 'SHIT! PANIC! Extra power and EARLY ACTIVATION!'_

 _It's my personal headcanon that, while saiyan tails will generally grow back on their own, there are also techniques to make them grow back faster, since tails are pretty important in saiyan culture. Vegeta's got some scar tissue that inhibits his tail's regrowth, and Goku's tail got taken by Kami (and I figure if Kami takes something it stays took). I also headcanon that, if a demi-saiyan has a tail, it's a 50/50 shot as to whether it's brown or the same colour as their hair._

 _So, long story short: Trunks has a tail, Raditz is in a kilt, and Yamcha's being awesome. All is right in the world._

 _Quick note: For those of you who expressed concern about this story focusing on "the world would have been a better place without Yamcha" – it's not. Really, it's not. I've done the math, run the simulations, a world entirely without Yamcha actually tends to end pretty badly. At least, it does if no one else steps up to take his place and fill his roles. But someone did – a couple someones, actually. Things have changed as a result and, yes, some things are better, but it hasn't been all sunshine – the Z Warriors still died when Vegeta came, Namek was still destroyed, there were a lot of trust issues to work through with Raditz. They also got lucky (the 'author flailing on the floor going "no, I don't wanna do Cell, you can't make me!"' kind of lucky). It's not a 'better' world, it's a different one, with its own difficulties. Is it going well at the moment? Yes. Because this story is about Trunks and Yamcha (and Pu'ar), not everyone else, so they're the ones I want to focus on, not some new disaster they have to take part in. And, if this timeline is 'better' for Yamcha's absence… the future is also going to be better for his presence. It's all checks and balances. ;)_


	6. Bedtime

Chapter 6: Bedtime

"I'd wondered what those pills were for."

"Well, now you know." Trunks ran a hand through his hair, "Saiyans have huge appetites – it's one of the less useful things I inherited from my father."

The rest of the day had been… interesting. The women Lunch (who, the teens had been shocked to discover, were actually one woman using a ki technique to create separate forms for her split personality) had returned with their quarries – the Crane School students Tien Shinhan and Chaotzu – and Krillin had also returned, to Trunks's extreme discomfort, with androids 17 and 18, who had been talking with a _third_ android Trunks had never heard of in Bulma's lab. Well, to his 'consciousness' at least – apparently he had one or two less desirable routines in his core programing involving Goku that Bulma wanted gone before she brought his mechanical body online all the way. The android's – 16's – body was another sticking point as it happened. Bulma had explained it to the time travellers during the midday meal.

"I want to leave him mostly as he is," she had rolled her eyes, "You know, minus a bunch of weapons and stuff he won't actually need."

"So… he wants to keep the weapons?" Yamcha had asked curiously, Trunks listening attentively while simultaneously devouring his fourth plate of food.

"No," she'd shaken her head, "He's fine with that – he's not particularly interested in killing anything other than Goku, and _that_ little personality flaw is going to be gone as soon as I figure out how Gero managed to weave it through so many crucial subroutines, the crazed bastard."

"What's the problem then?"

"The _problem_ ," Bulma had growled, stabbing a cherry tomato with her fork, "Is that _I_ want to keep him humanoid, and _he_ wants to be a bird. Have you got any idea how many feathers birds have? Or how hard it is to calibrate them so they all move together properly and don't stick or spark or anything?!"

Needless to say, it had been interesting. Most of the conversation though had revolved around the warriors of the group discussing strategy for how best to train the two teenagers and what to teach them – Oozaru, multiform, endurance, gravity chamber, one-becomes-two, meditation, sparring, weights, ki techniques… the group had never had students to teach en masse before, and they were at least starting off with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. Though Trunks had nearly jumped out of his skin when 17 came over to say hi. Thankfully Yamcha had intercepted him.

"I don't know much about all this," he'd said, shaking the android's hand, "But I'm kinda surprised you're so keen to be involved."

"Dude," the android had given him an amused smirk, "A half-alien super-warrior with a sword has come from a broken future to get help so he can defeat what is basically my evil twin from an alternate timeline? Like hell I'm not getting in on this!"

Now, however, it was late, and after a full afternoon and another meal's worth of planning, both teens and Pu'ar were ready for bed. Bulma had offered up guest rooms for all and sundry for the night, and Trunks, Yamcha, and Pu'ar were now following a robot towards theirs.

"Seriously, though, I _need_ to kick this stupid phobia before we go," Yamcha said, switching subjects, "I we leave before I can swap recipes with that Chichi lady, I will have _failed_."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Lord Yamcha," Pu'ar patted his head consolingly from where she was floating next to him, "Though it _would_ be good if you could get over it."

"Don't worry, I think I hear Lunch discussing that with my mom," Trunks added, giving Yamcha a light cuff on the shoulder, "It's probably going to be part of your training regime."

"That's… great," Yamcha replied with a certain amount of trepidation, then went back to looking at the halls as they walked through them. "I've never been in a building this big before, you know. Kung Pao was the biggest I knew – I thought it was _huge_. But this place… I didn't think there _were_ places this big!"

"Home starting to seem small?" Trunks asked curiously.

Yamcha made a dismissive noise. "Kung Pao Rock is the perfect size. This place is ludicrous. And it smells weird."

Trunks blinked, then laughed, "You're ridiculous."

Yamcha spread his hands in a carefree shrug. "Hey, lords have the best of everything, and I have Kung Pao Rock. Therefore it is automatically the best – fact."

Trunks laughed again, "I take it back – you're not ridiculous, you're terrible."

Yamcha grinned, "Yeah, but you still like me."

"I do," Trunks agreed, then gave a shy smile. "Say, if lords have the best of everything… does that mean I'm the best, too?"

This got him a huge smile in return, "Obviously."

At this point the robot paused in front of a door. "Your room, sirs and miss." Then it turned and headed back the way it had come.

Yamcha blinked, "We're sharing?"

"Apparently," Trunks gave a rueful grin, "My mom's… pretty relaxed about relationships in general. Why, is it a problem?"

"I guess not," Yamcha looked away, a little red, "It's just… a little sudden, isn't it? We only just got together, and now we're sharing a room?"

"I don't think so," Trunks said, opening the door, "We've been living together for a couple months, so this shouldn't be a problem." He paused as he looked at the room with Yamcha, and the bed it contained. It looked very big, very comfortable, and very singular. Trunks closed the door again, face feeling as red as Yamcha's looked. "Okay, _that_ might be a problem."

"There was only one bed," Yamcha said a little numbly, "Mirai, why is there only one bed?"

"I think we can thank my mother for that," Trunks replied, turning on his heel, "Come on, let's go find her."

OoOoOoOoO

"Well of course there's only one bed," Bulma said simply when they found her in the kitchen, getting herself a bowl of mixed berries and cream (emphasis on the strawberries), "You're together, aren't you? I'm not some prude who's going to make you sleep in separate beds! You _are_ together, aren't you?"

Trunks rubbed his forehead, embarrassed, "Yes, we are, but… we're not at _that_ point yet – we only got together this morning!"

"This morning? When was 'this morning,' exactly?" Bulma raised one eyebrow at them, a grin tugging at her lips, "Because according to everyone who can sense it, your ki presences appeared a bit before noon."

"It was his time," Trunks replied, gesturing at where Yamcha was lurking warily in the doorway, hesitant to get too close to Bulma. Pu'ar had no such qualms and was flitting around the room, examining everything.

"And when was that, exactly?" Bulma asked, watching her grown son with amusement. This entire scenario was entertaining to her.

"About fifteen years ago," Trunks admitted, "I'd meant to come here right away, but… Mom couldn't really _do_ test runs, and the time machine seems to be a little inaccurate."

"Well, it seems to have worked out pretty well for you two," Bulma grinned, "And for all of us. I can't imagine how things would have played out if we hadn't had Raditz with us for some of those situations – he's probably the reason we got Son back home with a wish at all after the Namek fiasco."

"Really?" Trunks asked, curious in spite of himself.

"Mm-hm," Bulma nodded, "After Shenlong told us Goku didn't want to come back just yet, Raditz asked him to tell Goku to get back here right now because the baby was due any day and Chichi was going to be so pissed if he didn't get his ass back to Earth right that second!" she chuckled, " _That_ got Goku back all right! That was almost two years ago now…"

Trunks frowned, "Two years? But Goten doesn't look that old."

"Oh, he's not," Bulma agreed cheerfully, "Chichi wasn't pregnant – none of us were!" she laughed as she remembered, "Raditz pointed out that he'd never said _Chichi_ was going to have a baby, and someone's _always_ expecting a child 'any day now' _somewhere_ , but Goku still punched him." she shook her head, "He and Chichi thought it was a good idea, though, because after Goku got his strength back under control, they started trying again and, poof! Goten. I swear I've never seen Gohan as excited as the day he found out he was going to have a brother.

"Anyway," she refocused on the boys in front of her, "According to my watch, you've been together almost fifteen years – high time you shared a bed! So shoo, you've got training in the morning!"

"But-" Yamcha protested from the doorway only for Trunks to walk over to him with a resigned look.

"Don't bother, her mind is made up – trust me, I know my mom."

"That's almost twenty years from now, though!" Yamcha complained, red-faced, as they left.

"Yeah, but I know that look she has on," Trunks replied wearily, "It says 'you've lost.' Come on, we'll figure something out…"

Bulma laughed to herself as the two teens' voices moved farther away. After a moment there was the sound of hasty footsteps and Yamcha reappeared in the doorway, resolutely not looking at Bulma.

"Hey, Pu'ar, you coming?"

"You go on ahead, Lord Yamcha," Pu'ar squeaked, waving a paw, "I want to look around some more – if that's okay?" she added, turning to look at Bulma.

"Sure, we can chat," the woman nodded agreeably, then wiggled her fingers at Yamcha, "Sleep tight, cutie."

Yamcha made a choking noise and fled, and Bulma laughed again. "Oh, he's adorable – I see why Trunks likes him."

"You shouldn't tease him!" Pu'ar scolded, folding her arms and going to hover in front of Bulma, "Lord Yamcha's a gentleman!"

"Mmm, I can tell," Bulma sat down at the table with her berries, "What's he the lord of, anyway? Or is that just a nickname?"

"He's the Lord of Diablo Desert!" Pu'ar announced proudly, floating over to sit on the table near her, "And I'm Pu'ar of the Thousand Forms – we're the top bandits in the desert! Or we were fifteen years ago," she amended, "Someone else has probably moved in on our turf by now." She looked extremely annoyed by this thought, and Bulma smiled, recalling her own wild youth (which, to be fair, had led to a pretty wild adulthood).

"I went to Diablo once," she admitted, scooping up a spoonful of berries, "Back during my first big adventure with Goku."

"Really? Then you know how awesome it is!" Pu'ar folded her arms and looked smug.

Bulma laughed and wrinkled her nose, "I remember it being too hot and dusty, and I'd lost all my capsules, so it wasn't a very fun leg of the journey for me." Her eyes grew a little distant as she chewed her mouthful of berries, "Hard to believe it was so long ago – I was only sixteen at the time, you know? Lucky for Trunks and Yamcha I didn't cross paths with you guys back then – I was absolutely boy-crazy, and a pair of hotties like them?" she winked at Pu'ar, "The only issue would have been choosing which one to pursue."

"You might not have liked Lord Yamcha so much after we robbed you blind!" Pu'ar said cheerfully, "So it's a really good thing we didn't meet you, 'cause then you'd have gone after Mirai!"

Bulma gagged on her new spoonful of berries, coughing a few times before answering, "Thank-you for that little scenario, that's going to be haunting my nightmares now." Wiping her eyes she glanced at Pu'ar's unrepentant face and snorted, "Definitely for the best we didn't run into them, then. And even besides that, it might've gotten that little pig to reveal his emergency capsule early, and then we'd probably have missed running into Lunch - she helped save me from a guy called the Carrot Master. And then we picked up Chichi for a bit…" she shook her head, "With his phobia… a group like that would either have cured him or killed him. Still," she rested her chin in her hand for a moment, spoon still in her mouth, "Makes you wonder- what would it be like now if the time machine had worked properly? Would Chichi have still come with us and kept showing up over the years to see Goku? Would she still have eventually fallen for him?" she chuckled, "Probably not – you've never seen a pair of teens fight like those two used to – and I mean literally fight! …then again, Trunks did say Gohan was his teacher, so they must have at least had a fling. But what about Lunch? She's the reason we were able to beat Raditz without anyone dying; not that that stopped Goku from going to train in Otherworld with King Kai anyway…"

"Wow, sounds exciting," Pu'ar said, eyes wide.

"It has been, in spurts," Bulma agreed, "I thought things were finally quieting down for a bit, but I guess not." She shrugged, then grinned, "Gotta admit, though, I like this kind of excitement a lot better than the life-or-death kind." Standing with a stretch, she glanced at Pu'ar. "Wanna hang out with me tomorrow? The boys'll be busy, knowing that group, and you could help me with 16."

Pu'ar scratched her head, "I dunno, Lord Yamcha's the one who handles most of the mechanical stuff in our group. Well, him and Mirai now. Basically anyone who isn't me."

"Yeah, but you're a shape-shifter, right?" Bulma countered, "You mentioned earlier, and if you can do birds, it would be a _huge_ help to have a living model I could work off of. And you could talk to 16 – it needs more socialization than the twins anyway."

Pu'ar considered, then nodded. "Okay, that sounds fun!"

"Great! We can start after breakfast."

OoOoOoOoO

Yamcha and Trunks stood side by side, staring at the bed. Yamcha ran a hand through his hair, adjusting the strap of his satchel over one shoulder (encapsulating full capsules didn't always work so well, so he'd taken it with him when Trunks put away the time machine). Then he brightened.

"Oh, wait, I got it!" he turned to Trunks with a grin, "I brought my futon with me – wasn't sure how many you'd have, with the android apocalypse and all. We can trade back and forth between it and the bed."

"Okay. So, who gets the bed tonight?" Trunks asked, glad for the solution, but a little uncertain as well.

"You do," Yamcha said firmly, "I'm glad I came, don't get me wrong, but today's been crazy, and I could use something familiar." He put his satchel on the bed and began to sort through it, careful not to accidentally deploy any of the loose capsules by mistake.

Trunks considered arguing, then decided not to – the couch had been comfortable, but being in a proper bed again was going to feel good. In the meantime he unstrapped his sword and leaned it against the bedside table, then sat on the end of the bed to pull his boots off, only twitching a little at the soft 'poi' of Yamcha finding and setting up his own sleeping arrangements, and doing his best to ignore the quiet rustling sounds going on behind him that sounded suspiciously like someone changing clothes. However a bundle of cloth hitting him the back of the head _did_ make him jump. It turned out to be a long-sleeved tunic-robe-thing of undyed fabric.

"…Yamcha?" he turned in time to see the bandit shrugging into a similar garment over his boxers. …Trunks's hormones took the opportunity to point out that he'd never actually seen Yamcha's legs before – the bandit had always worn loose pants or desert robes around Trunks before.

They were nice legs.

"Yeah?" Yamcha looked over at him curiously.

"Um…" Trunks swallowed as the hem dropped around Yamcha's ankles and the legs went away again, mentally stomping on the urge to request that the legs come back and holding up the tunic-thing instead. "What is this?"

Yamcha frowned and then snorted. "What, don't they have nightshirts in the future?" he gave a half-grin, "Thought you might like the option of sleeping in something other than your clothes again – don't worry, it's clean."

"Why did you have a spare nightshirt in your futon?" Trunks asked, standing and walking around the edge of the bed. He found the answer himself before Yamcha could supply it – the futon was covered with what was probably Yamcha's entire wardrobe, along with a tangle of bed linens and a pillow. Trunks looked back at Yamcha and raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

Yamcha shrugged, unrepentant. "The bureau they were in were was non-capsule. I'd figured I'd sort something out at your place."

"So your solution was to just dump it all on your bed?"

"Why not? There's extra space in that capsule."

"…fair enough, I guess."

Yamcha crouched down to clear his futon off, and Trunks inspected the borrowed nightshirt.

…he wouldn't have to poke a hole in it for his tail, that was a plus. And sleeping in his clothes in an actual bed _would_ be kinda weird… Then again, so would wearing a nightshirt, for him at least…

The mattress dipped as Yamcha sat down next to him. "You don't _have_ to use it, you know," he said conversationally. His hand brushed Trunks' tail inadvertently and the demi-saiyan jumped at the unexpected contact. Yamcha flinched. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Trunks reassured him, "It didn't hurt, it's just… _really_ sensitive. It's like it's made of nerves or something." He sighed, "Raditz and my father have said they can show me how to train it so it's not a liability without deadening the sensation in it entirely once I've got control over it."

"Any idea how you're going to do _that_?" Yamcha moved his hand away.

Trunks shrugged, "Raditz thinks going Oozaru might help – he thinks that _I'm_ thinking too hard about trying to use it, and Oozaru's run by instinct so I won't think, I'll just _use it_ in that form, and once I'm myself again I'll know how."

"Mmm." Yamcha knocked shoulders with him, "Whatever happens, you'll get it. You're smart." Then he looked around, frowning. "I wonder what's taking Pu'ar so long – I'd have thought she'd be back by now."

"She's coming, I think," Trunks answered, focussing on the shape-shifter's ki in conjunction to their own before a thought occurred to him, "Wait, where's _she_ going to sleep?"

Yamcha rolled his eyes like Trunks was being dense, opened his mouth, then paused and looked sheepish. "Right, you wouldn't know that. Pu'ar usually sleeps on my head." He got up and stretched, walking back to his futon, "Anyway, I'm going to bed – don't know how long it'll take you to get strong enough to fight the androids, so I plan to make the most of this opportunity while I have it!"

Trunks chuckled, eyed the nightshirt again, and rolled his eyes. Hell with it. He shucked off his shirt, heard another rustling, and turned to see Yamcha kicking his boxers off one foot and into his clothes heap before flopping onto the futon. The demi-saiyan turned sharply away again, pulling the nightshirt over his head, stripping the rest of his clothes from beneath it, and telling his hormones that if they didn't start behaving soon then he was going to have to do something drastic.

Possibly to Yamcha.

…

Tail! His tail was a (welcome(ish)) distraction. It felt strange on his bare skin and under the nightshirt, longer and heavier and far more sensitive than he was used to. Hopefully Raditz was right about Oozaru form helping, otherwise he might just have to cut it off and he _really didn't_ want to do that. Heck, just the thought of it sent his tail curling around one leg, startling him a little. He didn't bother trying to get it off, just turned off most of the lights (save one for Pu'ar), pulled back the covers, and got into bed.

The sheets were soft, and of nicer quality than the blankets Yamcha had lent him – heck, they were nicer than the blankets he used at home. Everything here was. His mom had saved a lot before she'd had to flee from the place that was both her home and her company, but most of the stuff she'd taken had been tools and tech. A lot of the stuff they used and wore was traded for or scrounged – most of his blankets had patches, one in particular was more a quilt than a blanket at this point, it had so many (it was his favorite). Production companies were getting rarer and rarer as time passed and people died. From what Trunks understood the old ways were making a come-back in some areas, but even that was difficult. Getting enough people to tend rice paddies or farm wheat and cotton or raise food animals was difficult.

Especially because it was said that the androids enjoyed the scent of burning fields and the screams of dying animals. Resources were getting short in some places…

Trunks sighed and turned on his side. That was something they'd have to work on once the androids were gone – rebuilding resource industries, rebuilding the _world_. It was a little strange to think about, actually – Trunks had always focussed on defeating the androids, destroying them, stopping the slaughter. He'd never really thought about what would come after. He hadn't allowed himself to dream that far.

The way the Z Warriors and their families had talked earlier, though… they'd started out as a large group, then gradually broken down into two, the saiyans discussing Trunks and the humans discussing Yamcha, the androids and Chichi casually wandering between them while Bulma grilled Trunks on what her future self had been up to inventions-wise aside from the time machine. And it had been obvious that the question on their minds hadn't been _whether_ Trunks could get strong enough to beat the androids, but simply how long it would take him to reach that point. It was… encouraging. Inspiring. …and just a little scary, having people have faith in him like this-

"Hey, Mirai?"

Trunks opened his eyes again, grateful for the interruption. "Yeah?"

"Come over here for a moment?"

Rolling over a couple of times, Trunks leaned over the edge of the side of the bed Yamcha's futon was next to. "What?"

"I forgot to do something earlier." Yamcha, already sitting up, leaned forward and brushed a light kiss against Trunks' lips with a grin, " 'night, Mirai Trunks."

Trunks found himself grinning back, "Good night, Yamcha."

The bandit lay back down, looking pleased, and Trunks rolled back into the middle of the bed and settled down again, his thoughts less restless than they had been a few moments ago. He vaguely noticed Pu'ar come in and the lamp going out, but beyond sinking further into sleep as the light vanished, he didn't respond.

OoOoOoOoO

 _Yamcha, you precious little angel baby, come here and let me love you._

 _Fun bit for all my fellow Gochi shippers who didn't already know – we actually have Yamcha to thank for that. He ran into Chichi first, got freaked out by her because of this helmet she had that could do some scary shit (not because of his phobia – it's specifically mentioned in the story) and knocks her out. Then he finds out who her dad is and flees back to make nice because he doesn't want to be the Ox King's enemy. Chichi doesn't remember that he hit her (head-shots ftw!) and he pretends to be in love with her to get her to do what he wants. Then Goku shows up, Yamcha flees, and Chichi assumes that Goku's in love with her too. And thus Gohan and Goten's existence was ensured!_

 _For those wondering, Yamcha's 'entire wardrobe' constitutes a pretty small heap of clothes. He's got a couple current bandit outfits, some older ones he wears around the lair, his town clothes, and some more 'typical' desert-style clothes, like what he got Trunks. It would all fit in a duffle bag, including underclothes and stuff. Also, I like nightshirts. I find them comfortable and sexy, and they need to gain more popularity again._

 _Trunks is having hormones and I am having fun._


	7. Double Time

Chapter 7: Double Time

Trunks looked at the three men standing before him. Vegeta, Raditz, and Son Goku, the last pure-blooded saiyans in the universe. The two brothers were dressed as they had been the day before, though Raditz had also added a paired of what looked like armoured gauntlets; Vegeta wore what Trunks recognised from his Gohan's stories as saiyan armor. Trunks himself was decked in his usual clothes.

The three had taken him to a deserted rocky area well away from civilization after breakfast (which had been an interesting affair in itself (walking into the kitchen to find Yamcha trying to cook and fend off the kitchen robots at the same time was a memory that was going to stay with him)). Now was looking him over with eager curiosity. "So, who gets to fight him first?"

"Fight me?" Trunks asked, surprised. He'd thought they were going to teach him to use the Oozaru form…

Raditz smirked at him. "Of course we're gonna fight you, brat – how else are we supposed to find out how good you are? And Vegeta gets to go first."

"Aw, how come?" Goku looked sulky.

Raditz's tone was firm, "Because he's the prince and because he's the brat's father."

"Aw…" Goku drooped but stepped back again.

Vegeta, for his part, glowered. "How come he listens to _you_?"

Raditz shrugged with one arm, letting his chin rest on the knuckles of his other hand with a vague smirk, "It's a gift. So, you gonna fight the brat or not?"

The saiyan prince rolled his eyes but stepped forward to stand in front of Trunks, arms folded. "For the sake of this fight, I'll ignore your tail, since you can't control it and I want to see your full potential. Be warned, though – if I think you're holding back on me even a fraction I'll squeeze it right off!"

Trunks swallowed and glanced at the other two saiyans. Goku gave him a cheerful thumbs up. "He is completely serious!"

"Don't worry about it, though," Raditz added, "If he tears that one off, we'll grow you a new one! I'm on my… I think it's my seventeenth, personally."

"That's not something to boast about!" Vegeta snapped before turning to glare at Trunks again. "Well? Power up already!"

Trunks jumped, then nodded, quietly glad he'd left his sword and jacket at home. His father was turning out to be… different than he'd pictured him. Taking a breath, Trunks reached for the golden ki inside himself and flared into super saiyan.

Vegeta stared at him for a moment, expressionless, then turned to Raditz and raised an eyebrow.

The long-haired saiyan huffed and rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah, we see him. Dagore's _teeth_ , Vegeta, he _told us_ he'd ascended _yesterday_! Just fight him already!" he flapped a hand in an annoyed 'go on' gesture.

Vegeta smirked and turned back to Trunks, flaring super saiyan as well. "All right, _boy_. Let's see what you can do."

And, with no further warning, he attacked.

OoOoOoOoO

Yamcha looked between the three people standing before him. Tien Shinhan. Krillin. Lunch. Legends that he'd never heard, masters who had risen during his eye-blink journey across a decade of time, people who seemed closer to gods than mortals from his perspective. And they were going to teach him the secrets of their power.

He was honestly a little torn between jumping for joy or throwing up from sheer nerves at the prospect.

"How much formal training have you had?" Shinhan asked, watching him with an appraising expression.

Yamcha swallowed and answered honestly. "Almost none, sir, a little kung fu when I was younger, but I'm mostly self-taught. Mir- Trunks has been teaching me about ki for about awhile now."

"What do you know so far?"

"He's taught me how to sense and gather it – I haven't managed anything more than that yet."

"Mm," the triclops glanced at Krillin, "You should probably be the one to spar with him."

"What? No! I'm closest to him in size," Lunch protested from where she stood. Only blonde her was here today, in a short-sleeved black gi with a white sash. She scowled at Shinhan, arms folded, "I should get to fight him first! It'll be the best demonstration of what he can do!"

"Normally, I'd agree with you," Krillin said from where he stood beside her, "However there's a few important things in this instance that work against you."

"Which are?" Lunch turned to him with narrowed eyes, revealing as she did so the character for 'turtle' emblazoned in white on her back.

Krillin gulped but stood his ground, "One, Blonde is a little bit more excitable than Blackie, and you're more likely to get too into it and beat him up. Two, you're only half here today, so Blackie can't come out instead. And three," he gestured at Yamcha, "He's been backing up and turning red since we mentioned the prospect of you fighting him."

Yamcha froze in mid-step and blushed darker in embarrassment as attention shifted back to him. Lunch sighed.

"Right, the girl phobia thing. We'll need to work on that," she grumbled, backing up, "Argh, Blackie'll probably need to do that, too."

Shinhan put a hand on her shoulder, offering a small smile when she looked at him, "Don't worry, you'll get your chance," he looked at Yamcha with his third eye while the other two stayed on Lunch (which was… kinda really creepy), "He'll meet a female opponent eventually, one he can't get out of fighting, and _you're_ the you better suited for that. And it would be remiss of us not to address this problem if we're going to whip him into a decent warrior."

Yamcha bristled at this slightly – he was a great warrior! Sure they were stronger than him, but it had been a couple years since his last defeat, and that counted for something, surely!

Krillin must have noticed his annoyance, because he walked over to him with a friendly smile, "Hey kid, cool down. Let's spar and find out what you've got _before_ we start fighting, okay?"

There was a moment of silence.

"Uh, Krillin?" Shinhan asked, "When you say 'spar before fight,' you _do_ realize-"

"You know what I meant!" Krillin snapped, embarrassed himself now. He backed up again and settled into a stance. "Come on, I'm ready – attack me whenever!"

Yamcha nodded, crouched into a stance of his own, and sprang.

He couldn't even land a hit on the guy. Every punch, every kick, every feint was either blocked, evaded, or seen through, and Yamcha got the strong impression that the only reason _he_ wasn't taking more damage was that Krillin was pulling his punches and drawing the fight out to get a proper grasp of Yamcha's abilities.

It was, needless to say, a somewhat humbling experience.

It was also inspiring. Trunks had openly admitted that part of the reason for his vast strength was his alien heritage. But these people, they were fully human, and the amount of ki they were displaying… it was staggering, moreso because it had the same feeling to it Trunks' did when he was supressing his power, like a banked fire, waiting to burst into flame at a moment's notice. And if they had gone this far, why shouldn't he?

A good fifteen minutes into the spar, Yamcha got definitive proof that Krillin had been holding back and working not to hurt him, because Yamcha himself got distracted. He'd been trying to get in close again, get the shorter man in a grapple, when a familiar ki presence brushed the edges of his awareness. Mirai. His attention only flickered for a few seconds, but that was enough time for the punch Krillin had intended to be a feint to actually connect. Yamcha went flying, managed to correct slightly in midair, landed on his palms, did a handspring to his feet, then staggered and sat down hard, one arm around his ribs. He rubbed them with a wince, "That's gonna leave a mark…"

"Shit, are you okay?!"

Yamcha looked up as Krillin hurried over, expression concerned. "I think so."

"That's good," the short man looked relieved as he helped Yamcha to his feet, "What happened? That should have been an easy dodge for you!"

"Er…" Yamcha scratched his neck, embarrassed, even as he glanced around, "I felt Mirai- Trunks' ki, and it surprised me. I thought he was off training with the saiyans, but I can still feel him nearby – and someone else as well, I think?"

Krillin blinked as Shinhan walked up, then exchanged a glance with the triclops. "Yamcha, Trunks isn't here. He's over fifty miles away, with Goku and the others."

"What?! No, that can't be right," Yamcha shook his head, "My range isn't anywhere _near_ that good yet-!"

"He's gone super saiyan, along with Vegeta," Shinhan cut him off, "It's not that they're that close, it's that their ki is that great."

Yamcha gaped at them, then turned in the direction he could feel Trunks' energy coming from. It felt like he was only a few yards away… The bandit swallowed. Trunks had told him that saiyans and demi-saiyans outpaced humans, but Yamcha had been entertaining quiet thoughts of one day catching up to his- his boyfriend (shit, he had a boyfriend (he hadn't really thought of it in that term before…)), but catching this… it would be like trying to snatch the stars from the sky with his hands…

Abruptly, he turned back to the three masters with him. "Show me!"

"Show you?" Lunch sauntered up to stand by Shinhan, "Show you what?"

"Your power!" Yamcha demanded, eyes blazing, "You've all got it supressed, I can tell! Unleash it! Please – show me the potential of humanity."

The three exchanged a look, almost a silent conversation, then Krillin nodded, saying "Stay there," to Yamcha as they backed up, "It's safer if you're not too close for this."

Once they reached about twenty feet back, Shinhan held up a hand. And, almost as one, they released their self-imposed limits with mighty kiais.

Even standing back as he was, Yamcha was still driven to his knees by the sheer force of their ki as it blazed around them, his eyes watering at the brightness. Slowly though, he forced himself back to his feet, muscles straining but still standing. So this was human power, was it?

He could feel a wild sort of joy growing inside him again, much as it had when Trunks first offered to teach him about ki. Maybe he'd never reach the stars – but it looked like the moon was still well within his grasp! Straightening, he bowed, feeling them reseal their ki as he did so. "Thank-you."

"You're welcome," Master Shinhan gave him a slight smile, "Are you ready to learn?"

"Yes sir!"

"Good," the tall man adjusted the placement of his feet and brought his hands up, smile gaining a sharp edge, "My turn."

OoOoOoOoO

Supper that night was a… subdued affair for the two time travellers, both exhausted from their rigorous training and testing that day. Afterwards they staggered to their room together, where they collapsed on the bed side by side.

After a moment Yamcha groaned and rolled on his back. "So, how was your day?"

"I fought my dad," Trunks said, still face down, voice muffled by the blankets, "Then I fought Goku. Then I fought my dad again. Then I couldn't hold super saiyan anymore."

"So they stopped?" Pu'ar squeaked as she came to sit between them on the covers.

Trunks shook his head, still not rolled over. "The Raditz ran circles around me for awhile using Kaio-ken."

"Kaio-what?"

"Exactly."

Yamcha let out a tired whistle. "Sounds brutal."

"I feel stronger already…"

Yamcha raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, "How about you, Pu'ar?"

"I was a bird for most of the day," the little shape-shifter announced cheerfully, "Ms. Bulma had me modeling for her- or was modeling off of me? She wanted a better look at how wings and feathers moved together, and it's hard to do that with most birds, since they won't pose however you ask them to and stuff. It was fun! 16 is nice." She scooted closer and patted his arm with one paw, "What about you, are you okay, Lord Yamcha?"

"What she said," Trunks added.

Yamcha snorted, then groaned as he sat up, "I'll tell you in the morning, okay? I'm gonna fall asleep in my boots if I talk much longer."

They did not bother with separate beds that night; they barely bothered changing into nightshirts, and the next morning Trunks woke up back to back with Yamcha, and with Pu'ar's tail draped across his nose.

OoOoOoOoO

"All right, today we start your actual training."

Yamcha nodded, standing straight. They were in the same stretch of wasteland they'd used the day before, the only difference being that Yamcha had pulled his hair back and Master Lunch didn't seem to be there (apparently she was going to be joining them later).

"Trunks is a demi-saiyan," Master Shinhan continued, "He'll gain strength faster than you using normal techniques and be prepared to return to his proper time sooner as a result, so you'll have to train twice as hard in order to get as much out of this as possible."

"Okay," Yamcha nodded, a little confused as to exactly what was going on, but assuming that his teachers knew what they were doing, "How do I do that?"

"Same way we beat Raditz," a voice purred in his ear. Yamcha barely had time to panic over the fact that Master Lunch was _right behind him_ when a pair of arms snaked around his chest. "Lunch-time Special, One Becomes Two, Double Order!"

There was a moment where he felt like he was being pulled in two directions at once, then a sense of extreme disorientation as he staggered sideways. "What- what was-?" he looked up to see black-haired Lunch in a white gi with her arms around the chest of… himself. "HOLY SHIT!"

"Lunch, we agreed we were going to explain this to him first," Krillin groaned as Yamcha realized he was still being held by blonde Lunch and staggered away from her with a yelp even as his double did the same with black-haired Lunch.

"What's happened to me- to us?!"

"It's my special One Becomes Two technique!" black-haired Lunch beamed, "I originally developed it so I could meet myself and train more efficiently; when you divide in two like this it initially halves all your abilities, so it's a liability in a fight if you aren't used to it. But if you train like this, you get twice as strong twice as fast!"

"And you can't study different things at the same time," blonde Lunch added, circling the Yamchas to join herself, "I specialize in attack, she specializes in defense, and, together, we're Sword and Shield Lunch!"

Yamcha blinked and looked at himself, only to find he was already receiving the same look in return. "Does this mean I'm going to have split personalities now?"

"No, Lunch has always been a two-for-one special," Master Shinhan said, giving her a brief smile, "For the rest of us you just get twice as many memories as you'd otherwise have when you go back."

"You get used to it," Krillin added.

"How do we go back?" the other Yamcha asked, making his counterpart jump.

"Whoa, is that really what I sound like?"

His double shrugged. "I guess so? We still sound good, so why worry?"

"Good point."

"It's not hard," black-haired Lunch said, and both Yamchas started guiltily, "We'll show you how after today's training, but it's tricky to figure out on your own. Especially if you're disoriented from having it done to you unexpectedly, and _especially_ especially if you're in the middle of a fight!"

"You should have seen Raditz the first time we did it to _him_ ," her blonder counterpart snickered, "Big brute couldn't sense ki at the time, either, which made it extra confusing when he tried to team up with himself. But at half power, against me, Goku, and Piccolo?" she buffed her nails on her gi then examined them smugly examined them. "It wasn't too hard to subdue him after that. Didn't even need to wish anyone back to life, and we got Gohan home in time for supper."

"And he's been curious about 'Mr. Piccolo' ever since!" black-haired Lunch chirped happily.

"Anyway, next on today's training schedule!" Krillin interrupted, walking over to the two Yamchas, "You're going to spar with yourself!"

" _What_?!" both bandits asked in unison.

"Yup – best way to find out the weaknesses in your own style! Then, once you've got an idea of your weaknesses, the real training begins."

OoOoOoOoO

"So, I know what the back of my own head looks like now." This time Yamcha was the one face down on the bed, and Trunks lay on his side, passively watching him.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Yamcha turned his head to grin at him, "I really _do_ look good from every angle."

Trunks huffed a laugh, "Vain."

"What, are you disagreeing?"

Trunks laughed again, "No."

Yamcha smiled as Pu'ar made an approving noise from higher on the bed, "Good. You do, too, by the way."

"Do what?" Trunks asked, puzzled.

"Look good from every angle. Er, that is," Yamcha turned pink, "Every angle I've seen so far. But I'm sure they're all good!"

Trunks turned pink as well, but he smiled back and decided it was worth the effort to reach out and brush Yamcha's hair out of his face a bit. "You're cute when you're flustered."

Yamcha's pink upgraded to red. "I am not cute! Handsome, yes, extremely, but I don't do cute!"

"If you say so," he let his fingers card through Yamcha's hair; it was smooth. "So, how did you see the back of your own head?"

"Master Lunch has this technique," Yamcha explained, finally rolling onto his side as well, keeping his eyes on Trunks, "It's what lets her split her two personalities into two people. And, it turns out? If she's grappling someone else when she does it, or they're grappling her, they get split as well. She found out by mistake, the first time she fought Master Shinhan at the 22nd Budokai," he yawned and squirmed closer, "So they're gonna have me train in two bodies at once, so they can teach me as much as possible. How 'bout you? Learn the Oozaru thing yet?"

"Tomorrow," Trunks replied, "Mom's synthesizing me some clothes that'll stretch with the form so I don't wind up naked when I change back. Raditz's clothes are made of the same stuff, so the material already exists, it's just a matter of making a set for me."

Yamcha was quiet for a moment. "So… you're going to be dressing like Raditz?"

"What? No!" Trunks glared at him, "It's going to be pants and a tank top!"

"Geez, defensive much? You'd look good in a kilt."

"Sorry," Trunks looked away, "It's just… they showed me how to make a false moon today, and Raditz transformed. The kilt stretches, but it's more, um, more of a sash by the time he's done. And you've seen what he wears under it."

"Yeah," Yamcha turned red, "That man is not shy. Handsome, though."

Trunks glared at him, opened his mouth, then closed it and turned away with an annoyed huff. "I… really want to argue with you about that."

"Ah, come on, the guy's made of sex, don't deny it," Yamcha poked him in the side with a teasing grin.

Trunks couldn't help himself, he snorted and finally got up to get ready for bed. "You know you're pretty comfortable with all this for a guy who only figured out he's attracted to other guys a few days ago."

"It's not like I only started _looking_ a few days ago, I just didn't quite get _why_ I wanted to look. And why shouldn't I be comfortable with it? It all makes a lot more sense now," Yamcha sat up as well, groaning as he did so, then sitting on the edge of the bed and glancing at Pu'ar, who was taking her friends' exhaustion as an opportunity to hoard all the pillows. "Hey, Pu'ar, is what he's taking about a thing?"

"I dunno," she squeaked back from the head of the bed, "I'm a shape-shifter, gender's really just another option for us."

"Aw, come on, Pu'ar, you're supposed to know this stuff! I handle the fighting, the cooking, the mechanics, and the supply stuff, you do sentry duty, support, and data!"

"But human sexuality stuff is weird and boring and too complicated!"

"…okay, you're getting off on the complexity argument, from what Mirai's saying it sounds like you're right. I declare the subject of human sexuality closed on the basis of 'can't be bothered' until such a time as it becomes actively relevant."

"Thank-you, Lord Yamcha!"

Trunks stared between them, then shook his head. "You're so weird."

"Good weird?" Yamcha began to unlace his boots and Trunks came over and kissed his cheek as he did so.

"The best weird."

OoOoOoOoO

 _This chapter's a little short, but there's a lot in it and this is the best break point for the moment._

 _In regards to the training techniques and how effective they would actually be: it's freaking DBZ. Also… Toriyama dropped the ball when he didn't make Lunch one of the martial artists. Seriously, she could have had the BEST techniques… Also, just to reiterate, Black-haired Lunch has a white gi with 'turtle' on the back in black and a black sash, blonde Lunch's gi is inverted. When they are one person, the gi is dark and light grey, regardless of which Lunch is in control. Because of reasons._

 _Raditz does a lot of talking in this. Mostly because Vegeta and Goku are both far too content to let him handle all the wordy bits while they handle all the fighty bits._

 _In_ _ **Dragon Ball**_ _Goku goes through three tails in about the same number of years. I find Raditz being on his seventeenth tail in his early/mid-thirties (which is the age I picture him at this point in the timeline) to be totally plausible, possibly even impressive, regardless of Vegeta's opinions._

 _It's a lot of fun to write Yamcha in this fic, he's so different than he is in pretty much everything else I write him in. He finds out so many things about humans and saiyans very early on, and as a result his personal goals are, curiously, higher (because the potential of humanity is even greater than anyone ever thought when he was sixteen in canon) and more realistic (because he's never trying to out-saiyan a saiyan). And all this means that he never really loses confidence in himself or his abilities like original Yamcha does. He's got a swagger and a tempered cockiness that I love working with. He struts where canon ambles. This is not to dis canon – after all, I fell in love with canon him first. But it's also nice seeing him so confident._

 _Also, it's super-weird calling Tien, Krillin, and Lunch 'master.' I mean, in this context, they are, they're all martial arts masters and that's one of the proper terms of respect, but it's still weird._

 _Team Four Star is the best, they are the only reference I will allow myself to make in DBZ fics, and I will quote them wherever literarily possible._


	8. Lesson Time

Chapter 8: Lesson Time

Trunks swallowed, staring at the glowing sphere of ki in his hand, shifting a little in an outfit far more fitted than he was used to.

"So, what's the plan again?" Goku asked from where he was watching a dozen yards away with his brother and Vegeta.

"The boy and Raditz transform, we ascend, and then we beat the boy until he regains his sentient mind," Vegeta growled in annoyance, "And we've already explained it to you twice!"

"I know," Goku frowned, chin in his hand, "It's just, it sounds so…" his frown deepened and he waved his hand, trying to think of the word he wanted.

"That's how it's done, Kakarrot," Raditz said, also sounding annoyed, "This is how the Oozaru form has been trained ever since the false moon was developed over a hundred years ag-"

"Logical!"

"Eh?" Raditz blinked at Goku's interruption.

Goku, meanwhile, snapped his fingers and beamed, having found his word. "It sounds really logical! Only most of the time when I think that about something, everyone tells me I'm being crazy, so I wanted to make sure!"

Raditz made a pained sound and turned to Trunks. "Just throw the damn thing already!"

"Right!" Trunks nodded, forced aside his nervousness over what he was about to do, and flung the sphere high in the air, making a crushing motion with his hand when it was no more than a dot of light. "Now mix!"

The ki exploded into form and Trunks found he couldn't look away. He'd created a few of these yesterday, but always with someone's hand over his eyes for this final bit. It was beautiful, like a star, so beautiful… and it made him angry. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, his rage swelling with each beat, growing larger and larger, pushing away everything else in its path-

Trunks threw back his head and _roared_.

OoOoOoOoO

Raditz, Goku, and Vegeta stared at the newly-transformed Oozaru, Raditz with one hand held so he couldn't see the false moon just yet.

"Okay Vegeta, I will admit it – that's fucking impressive."

"Of course it is," Vegeta said, arms folded and the fainted of smirks playing about his mouth, "He's of royal blood."

"He's purple."

Both older saiyans turned to glare at Goku, who stared back at them, confused.

"What?! He is!"

Vegeta sneered, "Of course a third class like you wouldn't understand… hurry up and transform, Raditz, I want to fight him."

Raditz rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, your highness." But he lowered his hand to gaze at the false moon, laughing as the transformation overtook him.

OoOoOoOoO

Trunks groaned. It had taken awhile, but the three saiyans had managed to snap him back to himself while in Oozaru form. Then Vegeta had destroyed the false moon and Raditz had shown him some moves before they changed back. Now Trunks was lying flat on the ground, drained from his first transformation. Nearby sat Raditz, who was having a nutrient drink to replenish his own energy and watching Vegeta and Goku spar in the distance (Trunks was beginning to suspect that those two _never_ ran out of energy). The tall saiyan, meanwhile, glanced at Trunks as he stirred and raised an eyebrow.

"What's got your tail in a twist?"

"Purple," Trunks thumped his head on the ground and covered his eyes with one arm, "I turn into a giant, _purple_ monkey."

"Le'vendar."

"Fine, a giant _lavender_ monkey," Trunks sulked. It was a powerful form, sure, but did it have to be so _embarrassing_?

"No, not lavender, _le'vendar_." Trunks uncovered his eyes to see Raditz watching him intently, "You become a giant _le'vendar_ -coloured _Oozaru_."

Trunks frowned. "What's the difference?"

Raditz glared at him a moment, then ran his hand through his hair, "Tch, freaking Kakarrot, forgetting like that. And without _me_ around of _course_ Vegeta wouldn't have explained anything…" setting his drink on the ground, Raditz walked over to Trunks, reaching behind his head to fiddle with something at the base of his scalp. When he brought his hands forward again, one of them held a smooth stone about a quarter of the size of Trunks's palm, a few cords looped through a hole time must have worn in the center. It was the palest shade of lavender Trunks had ever seen, almost white.

"This is le'vendar stone, maybe the last piece in the universe," Raditz said quietly, holding it up, "It was the hardest substance on all of Vegetasei, and the paler the colour, the stronger the stone. We used to wear small ornaments of it – the palest shade you could break and shape yourself. It was a declaration of power, you know? A way to show off your strength without speaking a word."

Trunks sat up with a bit of effort to get a closer look. "That's pretty light. You were that strong when you were little?"

Raditz laughed. "Hell no, I was very much a third class as a brat. This shade of le'vendar stone is special – it's the palest there is. We called it 'royal stone,' because if someone strong enough to break it, that was a person worth following, a king or a queen." He ran a thumb over it lightly, "Even after the wearing of le'vendar fell mostly out of practice, the ruler still had a disc of this stone in the royal medallion; a symbol of their power, of their right to demand our loyalty.

"I found this piece when I was around Gohan's age, lying in the sands of one of the oceans when I went for a drink," his eyes grew distant as he spoke, "Vegetasei was a desert planet, as red and beautiful as a blood ruby, but its heart was blue, coloured by the freshwater oceans that lurked beneath its surface. There was no wind down there, underground, so there were no waves like Earthly oceans have, only the ripples you made yourself when you drank, spreading off into the darkness…" he was quiet for a moment, eyes still fixed on a sight only he could see. Then he shook his head and his gaze returned to Trunks. "The wearing of le'vendar had almost died out by the time I was born, though people still broke it to show off, and some wore it. And finding this on the shore, where others must have been but seemingly no one else had seen it? I thought it was a gift from the gods themselves, a promise…" he shook his head again and grinned.

"But I'm getting off-topic, we're talking about _you_. And that hair of yours." He reached out and flicked a lock, "That shade of le'vendar purple – ornaments that pale would have ranked you high amongst the elites. It's a colour associated with strength and power in our culture."

"Really?" Trunks tilted his head so some of his hair fell in his face and he could get a better look at it.

"Oh yeah," Raditz fiddled with his hair a bit, presumably hiding the stone away again wherever he'd had it tied previously, "Your eyes might be weird, but the hair and tail?" he snorted, "You look like you walked out of a legend."

"Oh. …cool." Trunks was quiet for a moment, watching the two super saiyans sparring. "Say, how come my dad wouldn't have told anyone stuff about Vegetasei or le'vendar? I know I've only known him for a few days, but he seems pretty proud of his heritage."

Raditz stared at him silently, then looked away. "Don't tell him I told you this, but Vegeta doesn't actually remember much. You know Kakarrot got sent here as a baby, right?" Trunks nodded and he continued. "Vegetasei was destroyed pretty soon after he was born – within a few days. I was ten at the time. Vegeta was five." His expression grew troubled. "I didn't know Vegeta before then, of course – I was the third class son of a third class warrior and he, well… he's _still_ the prince. But I heard the rumours and stuff – Frieza took him to work for the Planet Trade _young_ , younger than most. Don't get me wrong, he was good at it; Vegeta is a brilliant warrior. But's that's all he really _knows_ of our culture – the fighting.

"We were a race of warriors and mercenaries. Actually there was no word for 'warrior' in the old saiyan language, my mother told me, because we didn't need one. To be saiyan is to be a warrior, so no need for two words. But we were more than that. We built, we made things. We told stories, we followed our gods. We had families, and friends. Yeah, we were bloody and violent and crude, the best warriors in the universe, but… even a king must stand still in the rain." He gave Trunks a crooked smile. "We were proud of our skill in battle, and rightly so, but now, here at the end of us, sometimes I wonder… what else did we have to be proud of?" he sighed and sat back. "Guess we'll never find out now."

Trunks was still trying to figure out what to say to this when Goku and Vegeta walked up, the prince noticeably favoring one leg, and Raditz's introspective mood vanished like it had never been. "Hey, Kakarrot," the tall saiyan smirked, "I take it that's another victory to you?"

"Shut up!" Vegeta growled, indirectly answering the question, "What were you and the boy talking about?"

"Oh, I was just giving him a little advice," Raditz said casually.

The saiyan prince's eyes narrowed. "On what?"

"This and that," Raditz gave a lazy smile, then turned to Trunks, "Oh, by the way – when you've got him down, see if you can get him to put a hand on the base of your tail. It is _incredibly_ worth it."

Vegeta started spluttering, crimson, and a moment later Trunks joined in as he realized what exactly Raditz was talking about, adding protests that they definitely had _not_ been talking about _that_ whole Goku looked on in confusion.

It was to the great relief of both generations of royals when the group went back to Oozaru training.

OoOoOoOoO

They poured Trunks into bed that night. Raditz carried the young demi-saiyan in draped over one shoulder, dumped him on top of the covers, and handed Yamcha a small green object.

"It's called a senzu," he said when the bandit asked, "It's a type of medicine – make sure he eats it when he wakes up. Which will probably be tomorrow." Then he winked. "Guess you'll have to postpone any plans you two might have had for another night."

Yamcha frowned. "Plans?"

Raditz grinned at him, "Yeah, you know – the kind that leave you souvenirs like that one." And he gestured at the collar of Yamcha's nightshirt where it exposed his collarbone and the small, fading splotch of purple Trunks's ministrations had left there a few days prior.

Yamcha turned scarlet and automatically clapped a hand over it while Raditz laughed and left. Pu'ar came over and patted his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Lord Yamcha, your normal clothes hide it just fine, and it'll be gone in a few more days."

"I know," Yamcha sighed, still embarrassed but grinning a bit as well, "Come on, I'll get his boots off, then let's see about getting him under the covers."

"Okay!"

Yamcha used his futon that night so as not to jostle the battered demi-saiyan and chatted with Pu'ar about her adventures thus far exploring the future and helping Bulma with 16 until they both fell asleep.

OoOoOoOoO

Trunks groaned as he opened his eyes. He felt like one enormous bruise. Shifting slightly he winced and rescinded that thought – he felt like a giant bruise with several fractured bones. The saiyans had been… thorough… in forcing him to regain sentience each time he had entered the Oozaru state. He shifted again and bit back a groan. Today… was not going to be fun…

"I take it you're awake?" the bed shifted and Trunks looked to see Yamcha sitting there, still in his nightshirt. The bandit gave him a sympathetic smile and held out a hand, "Here, open your mouth – Raditz said to give you this to eat when you woke up."

Trunks's brows knitted together as he frowned. "I don't… need to be fed…"

Yamcha gave him a _deeply_ unimpressed look. "Trunks, open your goddamned mouth or I will pinch your tail and drop it in while you scream."

"I'd do it," Pu'ar advised from his other side, "He pinches _hard_."

Trunks sulked but opened his mouth and Yamcha carefully placed something inside. Trunks chewed it, swallowed- and all the pain went away, replaced with a veritable _flood_ of energy. He bolted upright, too abruptly it turned out because Yamcha yelped and fell off the bed with a thump. A moment later he popped back up and Trunks turned to stare at him. "What _was_ that?!"

"Raditz gave it to me last night and said to give it to you when you woke up," Yamcha pulled himself back onto the bed, "He had a name for it- a sen-something? He said it was medicine."

Trunks blinked. "A senzu?"

"Yeah, that's it! I take it you've heard of them?"

"Yeah," Trunks nodded, "They're a sacred medicine that provide sustenance and healing. The plant they grow on had died in my time."

Pu'ar stretched, then walked over the bed to flop next to Trunks. "If you took some back with you, could you grow a new one?"

"I- don't know. That… I never thought of that," Trunks admitted, then turned to Yamcha, "There is one thing I do need to do, though."

"What's that?" Yamcha tilted his head to the side, then yelped again as Trunks knocked him onto his back and sat on his stomach. The demi-saiyan smirked down at him.

"You were gonna pinch my tail. That would have hurt a _lot_."

Yamcha stared up at him, unimpressed and unrepentant. "And in retaliation you're going to do…?"

"Nothing," Trunks admitted, "I just wanted an excuse to sit on you."

The bandit frowned at him, puzzled, then laughed. "You've been spending too much time around me."

"Not for the past few days," Trunks countered, "Not nearly enough." And he bent down and kissed Yamcha, adjusting his position so the other teen could sit up a bit as well-

"Well don't you two make a pretty picture?"

The two teenagers sprang apart like they'd been electrocuted, and Trunks turned to stare in red-faced horror at where Bulma was leaning in the doorway with a smug little half-smile. She stood up straight as they watched.

"Your collective teachers have asked me to inform you that if you don't come to breakfast now, you don't eat until lunch."

Both teens stared at her for a moment. Then Yamcha dove for his clothes, only to freeze and turn back to Bulma. "Why are you still here?! I- I need to get dressed!"

"Oh don't worry, I don't mind." Bulma leaned against the doorframe, for all appearances making herself comfortable. She waved a hand at him. "Go ahead."

Yamcha turned scarlet. " **OUT**!"

Bulma smirked and opened her mouth to respond, only to find herself being lifted and carried out the door by Trunks. "Hey~!"

"Quit picking on my boyfriend, Mom," Trunks said firmly as he walked out of the room, the door slamming behind him, "Besides, _I_ haven't even seen him undressed all the way yet – I get to see him first."

"Spoilsport. Okay, fine," Bulma grumbled when Trunks proved unyielding, "Put me down, I can walk."

A couple minutes later Yamcha caught up with them, still pulling on his shirt, boots unlaced, white sash draped over one arm, Pu'ar flying after him. "Oi, wait up! Dammit, I wait for you to wake up so I can give you that damn medicine and this is what happens!? Next time I'm leaving you a note!"

Trunks laughed. "Thanks for looking out for me."

Yamcha looked away, scratching his neck. "Ah, don't mention it. That's what you do when you're- you're boyfriends, right? Look out for each other?" he looked back at Trunks nervously, "I don't know much about this stuff."

"That's okay, I've never done it before, either," Trunks moved to walk so their shoulders were brushing, "Never had the time or opportunity."

"So… we're figuring it out together, then?" Yamcha gave him a small smile.

"Yeah."

"Sounds nice."

"Oh my _god_ , could you two _get_ any more adorable?"

Yamcha managed a rather impressive levitation and landed on the other side of the hallway from Bulma. "Stop _doing_ stuff like that! I'm having a hard enough time with this damn phobia _without_ you actively trying to make it worse!"

"Mom," Trunks added, moving to stand between the two of them, facing Bulma with his arms folded, a note of warning in his voice, "Seriously I don't want to introduce him to _my_ version of you have him suffer a heart attack. Cut it out."

"Sorry, sorry," Bulma held up her hands placatingly, "I wasn't actually trying to scare him this time. You're just such a cute couple, I couldn't resist."

"I'm not cute!" Yamcha protested and Bulma laughed.

"Sweetie, you're precious. I need to get pictures of you two before you go. Anyway, I've already eaten, so I'll leave you two to walk down together. Pu'ar wanna come with me? I've got food in the lab."

Pu'ar considered for a moment, then nodded. "Okay! Good luck with your training today Lord Yamcha, Trunks!" so saying she flew over to Bulma's side and the human woman sauntered off down the hall, waving back at them without looking as she did.

The two teens watched her go briefly, then Yamcha turned to Trunks with a beseeching look. " _Please_ tell me she's mellowed out some in the future?"

"Much as I'd like to…" Trunks sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "She's kind of immutable. There's a _reason_ she's been able to run with this crowd and survive the experience since she was sixteen, even though she's not a fighter and doesn't have any physical powers." His tail lashed twice, then resettled around his waist, a fact Yamcha noticed as he finally got around to tying his own sash.

"Hey, your tail – are you doing that on purpose?"

"Yeah," Trunks glanced down at it, pleased, "I finally have it under control – Raditz was right, going Oozaru worked. It feels like I've always had it now."

"Nice," Yamcha drifted over so they were walking closer together again, "How come you've got it around your waist like that? It looks good hanging down."

"This is what Raditz does with his when he fights," Trunks replied, cheeks a little pink, "Dad used to do this when he had one, too, and they both told me to practice keeping it like this until I can do it without thinking about it. They're going to teach me how to toughen it up without killing the nerve endings, too." He grinned at Yamcha, "And, on a side note, I'm gonna have to agree with my Mom, Yamcha – there are times when you're _very_ cute."

"I am not!" Yamcha snapped back, annoyed, "Cute's for people like Pu'ar or- or non-warrior types! I am most definitely a warrior type, therefore I am not cute!"

"Is that so?"

"Yes!"

"Mm," Trunks hummed, considering, "While your theory is sound, I think I've spotted a flaw in your logic."

"And what's that?" Yamcha eyed him warily.

Trunks grinned, and leaned over to speak into his ear. "The problem is that you're being really cute right now."

"I AM NOT!"

"Are to-oof!" Trunks grunted as Yamcha dropped and swept Trunks's legs out from under him, knocking him to the floor, and then came to crouch on the downed demi-saiyan with a wicked smirk.

"Am not," he said smugly.

"Fine, fine, you're very handsome," Trunks conceded, adding, "And also very vain," when his boyfriend preened at the compliment.

"With reason," the bandit replied with that lazy grin of his, leaning forward so that their faces were closer together, "And it looks like I've got _you_ this time."

Trunks swallowed hard, feeling his face heat up and abruptly _very_ aware of their proximity to each other; that expression really suited him to an unfair level. "I'm not pinned, you know, you're just sitting on me – I could get up any time I like."

Yamcha's grin just got a little wider, and he ran a hand through Trunks's hair, slow and lingering. "Guess I'll have to give you a reason to stay down, then." And, hand still tangled in Trunks's hair, he leaned the rest of the way down and kissed him, as slow and lingering as the hand in his hair had been, but many times sweeter. A brief pause for breath and then he was back, licking and nipping lightly, moving so that he was half lying on Trunks as opposed to sitting on him, pressed warm and close…

The two teens ended up missing breakfast after all, and Yamcha's stomach was growling loudly by midday. Trunks was okay in this respect thanks to the senzu bean he'd had earlier (he'd definitely have to see about bringing a cutting or some planting seed back to the future with him), but he had his own problems to contend with as a result of the instead-of-breakfast make-out session in the hallway. These problems being Raditz and the significant looks the tallest saiyan kept giving the newly-forming purple spot high on Trunks's neck.

OoOoOoOoO

 _Vegeta actually does like having Raditz around sometimes. It is gratifying to have someone who just understands why you're gloating without having to have it explained to them._

 _I liked writing this chapter – this is some headcanon for saiyan culture that I've been sitting on for awhile now and of which I am particularly fond._

 _Vegeta knows a little bit of saiyan stuff – Nappa and Raditz both told him things, but he really didn't retain much, due to lack of interest._

 _Raditz thought the stone he found was a promise of greatness, that one day his strength would rival the king's, and he would be able to wear his stone openly. In a way it was – he could easily shatter that stone now – but its meaning has since shifted. Now it's a piece of his lost home. He wears it tied in the hair at the base of his scalp, where it is for all intents and purposes invisible. Sometimes he gets the vague feeling that he should probably give it to Vegeta, Vegeta being the prince and all, but then he remembers that he cares about this stuff and Vegeta doesn't, so he has yet to mention it to him. Also, Raditz tends to act as the repository for saiyan culture in my stories. Because somebody has to, dammit._

 _I really didn't expect Trunks to be so assertive in a romantic sense when I started writing this – the few places I've seen him doing romance (I know there's more than I few, I just haven't seen 'em. ;) ) he's been pretty passive – the shy, sweet sort. So I thought that that's what he'd be here, and Yamcha would be the more dominant one, as that made sense regarding his personality in this time period. Then Trunks informed me that he wanted to pin Yamcha to the wall and make him_ _ **squirm**_ _. And Yamcha added that he didn't mind getting 'spoiled' in this regard for the moment. And I just went with it, because why not?_

 _Also, I feel I should mention at this point, there isn't going to be a sex scene in this fic. Smooches, yes, actual sex, no. Just so you know, in case you're waiting for that, so you won't be disappointed._

 _The sex scene is going to be a Delightfully M-Rated oneshot that I post after this fic is complete. ;)_


	9. Hang Time

Chapter 9: Hang Time

After the first few weeks, things fell into a routine for the time travellers – waking up, training for the day, falling asleep together at night. Sometimes the futon was used, but generally the two teens just shared the bed. Trunks was getting used to waking up with Pu'ar's tail in his face and Yamcha close, sometimes wrapped around him, sometimes just tucked up against his back.

He was also getting used to the saiyans – enthusiastic Goku, wily Raditz, and proud Vegeta. Getting to know his father had been… an experience thus far. The man was hard to read – almost every emotion presented as some form of aloofness or anger. The trick seemed to be to look to Raditz for cues – the two men had known each other most of their lives and knew each other quite well, even if they weren't exactly friends. Trunks was learning a bit of how to read the man on his own, but Vegeta still surprised him sometimes. Like when Bulma had announced she was pregnant one evening at a group supper and that Vegeta was the father in this timeline, too.

Vegeta's eyes had widened marginally as he'd looked between Bulma and her stomach. Then they'd narrowed again and he looked back to his food, gesturing at Trunks as he did so. "Just make sure it's strong like that one."

Then he'd returned to eating while Bulma yelled at him for his lackluster reaction and Trunks gaped. It was the first time his father had openly expressed approval of him.

It was interesting to see how the three saiyans interacted, too. Trunks mostly sparred with Goku and Vegeta – Raditz simply wasn't strong enough to press him unless he was already lagging – but the oldest saiyan did have a few good moves, not to mention a rather unexpected philosophy towards battles.

"You win a battle by taking less damage than whoever you're fighting," he'd said frankly one time while Trunks was taking a short break to catch his breath, "And the best way to do that _isn't_ to be good at blocking or tougher or more powerful than your opponent – it's to not get fucking hit in the first place! Work on your agility, learn to fucking _dodge_ , it will stand you in good stead!"

"Feh, if you dodged a little less and achieved zenkai more often you wouldn't be such a weakling," Vegeta had sneered.

Raditz gave him a beatific smile in response, "Sorry, what was that your highness? I couldn't hear you over the sound of surviving over twenty years in Frieza's service with a power level of 1500."

"Tch," Vegeta had scowled and looked away.

There had also been a few days Raditz _hadn't_ joined in. It had been quite a surprise the first time it had happened, waking up to the quiet patter of rain on the windows and going to the dining room to find it suspiciously minus one rather distinctive hairball.

"It's just us today," Goku had explained cheerfully when he arrived, "Raditz always gets all quiet when it rains. Sometimes he talks to Gohan a bit, but he won't fight or anything."

Gohan had nodded cheerfully from where he was setting up some books on the table, "He tells me stories about Vegetasei. Uncle Raditz says that rain is for sitting still and remembering – he's in the courtyard right now, and I'm gonna join him when I'm done with my homework!"

Trunks had been very confused for a moment before a comment the tall saiyan had made floated to the surface of his mind. "Even a king must stand still in the rain…"

"What's that?" Vegeta had glanced at him sharply.

"Nothing," Trunks hastily held up his hands, "Just something Raditz said awhile ago, about standing still in the rain. It didn't make sense at the time, but I guess this is what he was talking about?"

"Hn." Vegeta turned away, "Superstitious religious crap – don't think you're getting out of training because it's a little wet!"

Training that day had been… vigorous. Really more of an all-out war than training the way Goku and Vegeta went at it, both with fierce smiles on their faces as they did so. Trunks had thought the two of them fought a lot on normal days, generally sparring with each other while the demi-saiyan rested. He'd thought they might be a bit worse without Raditz there to run interference, but not _this_ bad!

"Well of course they are," Raditz had said when Trunks had asked him about it that evening, still sitting in the rain, shorter clumps of hair that usually spiked up and back now heavy with water and falling in his face, "They're zecken, battle partners. …which you don't know about, of course." He'd rubbed his forehead in a world-weary (or, more likely, 'Vegeta-weary') gesture, then explained. "A zeck, battle partner in your language, is a bit like a mate, but for fighting instead of romance or sex and stuff. They're that one person who you want to fight more than anyone else, who always pushes you, challenges you, forces you to bring out your best moves and make them _better_.

"And they're the person who's best to have at your back during battle, because you've fought them so many times that you know their moves as well as your own, and they do for you as well. I saw a battle pair fight a mob on Vegetasei once – it was breath-taking, the way they moved." He'd leaned back on his hands and grinned at the sky, "It pisses Vegeta off like nobody's business that Kakarrot's his zeck, but if there ever came someone strong enough to force them to go back to back…" he shook his head, "There's not an opponent out there who could get me to bet against them."

It had been, needless to say, an interesting experience thus far. Trunks had mastered the initial step of the Oozaru state and no longer lost his mind with the transformation; now he was working on learning to fight smaller opponents in it, as well as to increase his strength in general in the event that the androids got clever or lucky and he lost his tail before he could finish them, though this course of events seemed unlikely.

Pu'ar was still spending much of her time with Bulma and 16, though she had also begun exploring the city on her own a little, finding out what had changed in the time they had skipped. According to her there had been some interesting advances in the shape-shifting community, enough that she'd begun to acquire books on the subject. A small pile of them was beginning to grow on Yamcha's side of the bed, and she often chattered to them about what she'd read or about Bulma's progress with 16. While Yamcha seemed to have at least some grasp on the former topic, it left Trunks completely baffled. 16, however, was another story. He'd been down to his mother's lab a few times to talk to the AI and had been surprised at how soft-spoken it was, a quality Bulma assured him 16 had possessed since she first brought it online, and he was beginning to wonder if the android existed in the future, and if it might not be worth trying to find it and see if it would be willing to help them. It wasn't like the 'kill Goku' thing would be a problem in _his_ world…

Yamcha, for his part, was progressing at a fair clip, too – as Trunks had noticed, his bandit was a fast learner. He'd reached the point where he could now perform Master Lunch's One Becomes Two technique himself (as he had demonstrated for Trunks one evening after training (it had been- (it had- (…he'd had to ask Pu'ar to leave the room…))). The youth also had the art of ki manipulation and sensing figured out and was working on a technique of his own – a ranged attack that would allow his smaller ki reserves to stretch farther. Also, thanks to some supplementary lessons from Black-haired Lunch and Krillin on rest days, Yamcha was slowly getting better in regards to talking to girls. Though the shyness remained, it was no longer crippling. Pu'ar was very impressed.

"I've been trying to help him get over it for _years_ , and you've made more progress than I have in a few months!" she squeaked, floating around Lunch's shoulders in excitement.

The dark-haired woman giggled, "It was just a matter of finding out why he was so scared of them and working on that. When you look at it that way it's not a matter of fear, it's all about self-confidence, at least in this case," she winked, "I had some troubles with that when I was younger and just starting out with Master Roshi, so it wasn't hard to go from there."

"I'm just glad he's getting better," Pu'ar said with a sigh.

Trunks laughed from his place at the table while Yamcha looked torn between pleased and embarrassed. Training had been going well, and the Z Gang had assembled en masse to discuss progress, chat, and enjoy a group supper, and, while happy with his success, it still wasn't a topic he would have preferred to have brought up in front of _everyone_. Pu'ar noticed and floated back over him to sit on his shoulder and pat his cheek comfortingly with one paw.

Bulma grinned at the time travellers from her place at the table, and decided to be merciful (for once) and change the subject. "By the way, Trunks, thanks for letting me look at the time machine – I think I've got all the bugs out of your navigation system. It should travel with pinpoint accuracy now."

"Thanks," Trunks nodded at her, "It's worked out well the last couple instances, but I really want to arrive home at the proper time, for my mom's sake."

"Oh, what a good boy, worrying about your mother like that," Chichi smiled, catching little Goten's hand and stopping him from grabbing one of the adult-sized forks as she did so.

"Yeah, he's a real sweetie," Bulma agreed, shooting a glance at Vegeta, "Any idea how _we_ produced him?"

Vegeta glowered but otherwise kept eating.

Trunks looked away, embarrassed, "I just wish I'd been able to arrive in this timeline when I meant to."

"How come?" Krillin asked from farther down the table, "Seems to have worked out for the best for everyone as far as I can tell."

"I know, it's- it's kinda petty, really," Trunks scratched the back of his neck, "I just- I'd been hoping to see Goku's battle with King Cold. But I guess I missed it."

"My what?" Goku glanced up from his plate briefly to shoot Trunks a questioning look.

"When you fought King Col, Frieza's father," Trunks clarified, "It was the only battle my mom actually saw involving Frieza, so it was the one she told me the most about. How Cold found Frieza floating in space, barely alive, and turned him into a cyborg, and how they chased your ship back to Earth. She said it took the whole group to take them and their men down, and it was pretty epic. Though, I guess it happened a little differently here, since you came back from Yardrat early." He took a bite from his plate, then looked up again to see everyone staring at him. "What?"

"Frieza has a dad?" Goku asked into the silence just as Vegeta brought his fist down on the table hard enough to crack it in half.

"DAMMIT, Kakarrot, you swore you'd killed him!"

"I _did_!" Goku protested, "Or, I thought I had."

"YOU _THOUGHT_ YOU HAD?!"

"Hey, he was in half, only had one arm, was out of ki, on an exploding planet, in the middle of nowhere! And Bulma did that thing to their systems, so even if he _could_ have survived in space, he should have starved to death before anyone found him!" Goku countered hotly, "Even _King Kai_ couldn't sense his energy anymore, and he's a _god_!"

"Frieza's an icejin," Raditz said flatly, lowering his plate from where he'd snatched it over his head before it could spill with the rest of the food that had been on the table, "Icejin are notoriously durable. Why did you think he was able to get away with all he did? It's not like no one ever tried to assassinate the bastard before."

"Well, maybe he really _is_ dead this time," Krillin suggested from his end of the table, "Things are pretty different here than they are in Trunks's timeline, after all."

"Or maybe they're just late because I stuck a virus in their computers and wiped their systems," Bulma countered, looking grim.

"I thought you said that that was the most impressive bit of coding you'd ever done," 18 said coolly, flicking some spilled rice off her jeans.

"It _was_ ," Blma snapped, "Coding in an alien alphabet I was only familiar with the numeric system of, _and_ in an alien language, on an unfamiliar system and keyboard with my only real help being Raditz communicating to me via King Kai while Chichi is breaking people in half in the background? That virus was a goddamn _miracle_ , and if the coders of the world could see it they would fall on their knees and worship me as a living _god_ for pulling it off!" she sat back in her chair, arms folded, nose in the air, "That doesn't mean it was my _best_ work – I was in something of a rush." Then she perked up, "Hey, I should make a new one in case they _do_ come here! I bet if I do it right I could take out space travel for half the universe!"

There was another moment of silence in the wake of this pronouncement, then Vegeta, with great deliberateness, leaned over and kissed her on the mouth.

"So… what're we going to do?" Krillin asked awkwardly, "We don't even know if they're going to show or not."

"I'll go talk to Kami," Goku said, standing up, "He can get in touch with King Kai, and then we'll find out if Frieza's alive or not."

"Even if he's not, we should probably start training again," Raditz said calmly, "Cold's a malicious bastard as far as I know, and Frieza was his favorite son. It was short-sighted of us not to assume he'd come for revenge at some point."

"How would they even know where to look for us, though?!" Goku protested. It got him a pointedly raised eyebrow.

"We sent _you_ here, didn't we?"

"Oh right…"

"How come you're not more concerned about this?" Tien asked Raditz, speaking up for the first time since the revelation, "I'd have thought you'd be more worried."

Raditz glanced at him from where he'd gone back to eating, swallowed, and smirked, "Because I don't care _what_ Cold does – we've got a pair of super saiyan battle partners on our side," he turned back to his food cheerfully, "And, as I told the boy already, there's not an opponent out there who could get me to bet against them. Plus, we've got the toasters now-"

"Hey, what makes you think we'll help?" 17 interrupted mildly.

"Real-life hostile alien invasion," Lunch chirped.

"…okay, yeah, we're in."

"As I was saying, we've got the toasters now," Raditz continued blithely, "And there's the rest of us as well. And considering how things went on Namek, and that half of us were dead at the time, and that we've all only gotten stronger since, well…" he shot them all a wicked look, "You can understand if I'm optimistic."

Shortly after that the group broke up – to talk about training, to begin making preparations, to find a new source of supper since the current meal was mostly a mess on the floor thanks to the broken table (which Bulma had informed Vegeta in no uncertain terms that he'd be replacing the next day ("You know the house rule, 'you break it, you remake it'")).

"This is crazy," Trunks sighed as he lay next to Yamcha in the dark, "What were you supposed to _do_ that you changed history so much?"

"I don't know," Yamcha moved closer to him, Pu'ar making a sleepy noise of complaint as he shifted, "But I'm glad I came. Even if the Earth gets invaded, I get the feeling it'll work out for the best, somehow," he reached out and brushed a hand over Trunks's cheek, "So no regrets."

Trunks smiled and brought a hand up to cover Yamcha's, "No regrets."

"No regrets…" Pu'ar chimed in sleepily, shifting to a more comfortable position and sighing with contentment, "You two are warm…"

"Mmm," Trunks shifted closer as well, "It's strange, though – it seems like they never even _met_ their Yamcha."

"Meh, he sounded kinda unhappy from what you've told me about him anyway," his boyfriend murmured, "And like kinda a jerk. Maybe he's happier and less jerk-ish in this world."

"Maybe…"

They fell asleep to the sound of Pu'ar's purring.

OoOoOoOoO

Trunks and Yamcha were given the next day off as the adults figured out how to deal with the new information they'd been given. Trunks took the opportunity to wear something other than the training uniforms he'd been living in lately, trading them for the light brown desert clothes Yamcha had gotten him. The young bandit had taken a similar approach and was arrayed in a loose, sleeveless tunic of undyed fabric that reached his knees and was split on the sides, along with pants of a similar fabric and a green sash akin to Trunks's violet one. The demi-saiyan found him in the atrium after breakfast, sitting in a tree and chatting with a dinosaur. He waved as Trunks came over, dropping down to land in front of him. "Morning!"

"Morning," Trunks bumped shoulders with him, then glanced at the tree branch Yamcha had been on, "You're getting better – that's, what, forty feet up?"

"Something like that," Yamcha grinned at him, then turned to look over his shoulder, "Hey, Pu'ar, you joining us?"

"Yes, Lord Yamcha!" there was a puff of smoke and the dinosaur became a rather more familiar little blue cat who flew over to join them.

Trunks gaped. " _Pu'ar_?"

"Yup!" the small shape-shifter beamed at him.

"How did you _do_ that?!" Trunks demanded, "I mean- proportions and- and _mass_ -!"

Pu'ar folded her arms and looked smug. "I'm amazing like that."

Trunks turned to his boyfriend. "Yamcha?!"

The bandit shrugged with a grin. "She's amazing like that. Here, watch this!" jumping up, he grabbed a tree limb a good twenty feet off the ground and easily pulled himself on top of it, where he stood and clapped his hands. "Come on, Pu'ar, to the skies!"

"Right, Lord Yamcha!" Pu'ar darted up as well and, as she passed him, Yamcha leapt off his branch to grab her hind feet. Trunks boggled as Pu'ar proceeded to hover in mid-air with Yamcha dangling from her and no apparent effort.

"Pretty cool, eh?" Yamcha beamed and kicked his legs back and forth so he was swinging a bit, "We've got some pretty good combo maneuvers based around this."

"I- what-?" Trunks put a hand on his head in confusion, "Did you change into a stronger form or something?"

Pu'ar giggled, covering her mouth with her paws. "I'm not making myself stronger, I'm making _him_ lighter."

"But- **how**?"

This got him a raised eyebrow from both bandits. "Magic, of course." Pu'ar squeaked.

" _ **Magic**_?!"

"Yeah," Yamcha let go and dropped to land in front of Trunks again, his descent much slower than it should have been for the first few moments. He straightened and gave the other teen a bemused look. "How did you _think_ she changed shape like that?"

"I… um…" Trunks looked away, embarrassed, because, honestly? He hadn't thought about that. At all. And he should have, his mom had told him stories about the dragon balls since he was a kid, and those were magic.

He suddenly found himself wondering if maybe there hadn't been a whole other avenue of potential solutions for the android problem that he and his mom, with their scientific mindsets, had never considered before…

"Told you she was more dangerous than she looks!" Yamcha laughed and slapped his shoulder, "But anyway, all this reminds me – there's something I'd like to do today."

"Oh? What's that?" Trunks shook his head and pulled his attention back to the present.

Yamcha shifted, suddenly nervous, "I know it's our first day off in awhile, and you're probably sick of training, but I'm running out of excuses not to learn this and…" he glanced at Trunks with a shy smile, "And I'd rather learn it from you, like we originally planned. So…" he reached out and took one of Trunks's hands, tilting his head to the side a little as he did so, "Teach me to fly, Mirai?"

Trunks blinked, then smiled back, shifting his hand so he was holding Yamcha's as well. "I'd like that."

Yamcha beamed. "Me too."

It didn't take long – Yamcha already had the concepts of ki manipulation necessary for this technique down, so it was a simple matter to show him how to use them in this manner. The bandit had sworn when he'd looked down and realized he wasn't on the ground anymore for the first time, then his concentration ha broken and he'd dropped back down again. And then he'd been right back up. By the end of the day he was flying loops around the atrium and laughing while Pu'ar cheered and clung to his shoulders in turn and Trunks watched in bemusement.

"Are you coming down yet?"

"Not until I run out of ki," Yamcha replied firmly, doing a loop.

Trunks snorted, "You're being ridiculous."

Yamcha pulled up and came to hover in front of him, body parallel to the ground, and put his hands on Trunks' shoulders. "Mirai," he said seriously, "Mirai, _Trunks_ … I am not touching the ground. My feet are not on the ground, and I am not holding onto Pu'ar. I am flying." He laughed, a joyful, disbelieving sound, "Trunks, I'm _flying_! Until I met you, I didn't even think this was _possible_ for humans, and now…" he laughed again, rising and pulling Trunks up with him, "Can't you see how _amazing_ this is?! Flying under my own power – it's like a dream, only I'm awake!"

Trunks couldn't help smiling back, because, if he was being honest again, no, flying had never seemed that special to him. He'd been able to since he was four or five, it was just another mode of transportation at this point, no different than walking or running. But Yamcha was so excited he was practically glowing, and his enthusiasm was contagious. For a moment he could almost remember this moment for himself, when Gohan had finally let go and he hadn't fallen and the sky was finally his… "I guess it's pretty cool," he admitted, starting to fly as well and moving so their faces were level, "Not as cool as seeing you like this, though."

Yamcha tilted his head to the side again, then grinned, eyes shining. "I just thought of something else we can do while we're up here…"

"I think I just had the same idea," Trunks grinned back as Yamcha moved to meet his kiss, one leg hooking around the demi-saiyan's hip as Trunks let a hand drift up to cup Yamcha's face then run through his hair…

They both ended up staying in the air until suppertime, and it was a very flushed, happy, and (in Yamcha's case), wind burnt pair that arrived at the table to eat and hear about the plans the adults had been making.

OoOoOoOoO

 _I tell you guys and tell you guys this universe isn't "better" because Yamcha isn't in it, just different, but does anyone believe me? Noooo… Also, our time travellers will not be staying for the new King Cold and robo-Frieza battle on the grounds of 'no,' 'fuck no,' 'I won't do it,' 'you can't make me.' …okay, my reasoning is actually better than that – it's because a battle like that one really wouldn't focus on Trunks and Yamcha, and this fic is first and foremost about them, and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on a battle that really has nothing to do with them. Still, hey, Trunks was finally able to successfully warn them about a coming threat! Yay him!_

 _Before anyone complains about the 'battle partners' thing, I have no issues with people who ship Kakaveg romantically – I can even see where you get the ship from and why you enjoy it so, there is definitely a connection of some sort between those two. I simply interpret it as a platonic connection, though a very powerful one. Plus, opportunity for more saiyan world-building! Like hell I'mma pass that up!_

 _Pu'ar's shape-shifting is never really explored in the manga, which is a shame as I love shape-shifters, but we're given a few tantalizing hints here and there as to her abilities. She's a graduated shape-shifter, unlike Oolong, whose time limit is a result of having never completed his studies, so she presumably either has a very long period she can stay transformed or no time limit. She's also pretty strong – after Tien breaks Yamcha's leg at the 22_ _nd_ _Budokau she transforms into a magic carpet and flies him off the stage under her own power. Oolong demonstrates when fighting Goku that, regardless of his size, his strength doesn't seem to change much with his transformation. This means Pu'ar is either strong enough to lift Yamcha on her own merit (wow), able to change her own physical strength when she transforms, or has some other way of altering things so she's able to lift him. She's also the first main character in the manga shown to have the power of flight, something she does constantly but which none of us comment on or wonder about. Pu'ar's actually got a really fascinating skill set, and it's amazing we don't play with her more._


	10. Third Time

Chapter 10 – Third Time

"We don't know when the Planet Trade will attack or how strong they'll be when they do," Bulma announced from her place at the head of the table to the reassembled group a few days after the initial discovery, "Though Goku has gotten confirmation from King Kai that Frieza did indeed survive." (Vegeta glared daggers at the younger saiyan and Raditz casually reached out and whacked his brother on the back of the head) "So the current plan is that everyone starts training again, like you all did when Vegeta was the looming threat."

"Only better organized," Raditz grumbled, then glared when Vegeta sneered at him, "There is a _reason_ we used to form squads, a _reason_ the Ginyus were so goddamn terrifying, and it was _not_ their choreography! Though, granted, some of that was also pretty horrifying."

"Yes, we know, we talked about that earlier, hairball," Bulma glowered at him, then turned back to the resident time travellers, "Anyway, it's been decided that you're both ready for a little solo training, and that you specifically, Trunks, are ready to start training with our resident cyborgs."

Which was how he came to be standing in the usual stretch of wasteland across from the two figures who had haunted his nightmares for as long as he could remember, Yamcha and Pu'ar looking on for moral support.

"So, this evil other me," 17 said, sitting on a rock, hands dangling between his knees, "What's he look like?"

"Uh…" Trunks scratched his head, uncomfortable, "Like you do, really. Only with a Red Ribbon logo on his shirt instead of a Capsule Corp one."

"What, that's _it_?!" 17 looked incredibly put out by this news, "Just a tiny little detail? He's not rocking a mustache or a goatee or anything?!"

"…no, he's really not."

"Dangit! Way to drop the ball, evil me, way to _drop the ball_!" the black-haired cyborg stood up with a frustrated huff. "Well, that won't work – we gotta look _obviously_ different, or you'll hesitate at the crucial moment 'cause he looks too much like your awesome sparring partner, meaning me, of course, and you'll be killed, and then we'll have done all this for nothing!"

"You've been watching too much TV," 18 stated from where she was standing nearby, watching them all.

"To be fair, I've also been reading too much manga," 17 replied without a lick of shame, "And thank kami I have, because that means I'm genre-savvy enough to be _prepared_ for this sort of thing!" he pulled something out of one pocket and turned around for a moment, then turned back to them. "Ta-da! False mustache! Instant and obvious difference!"

There was a moment of silence. Then-

"I cannot believe we share genetics," 18 said flatly.

"Ah, come on, I look great," 17 replied, twirling one end of the mustache around a finger.

"I cannot believe we share _software_."

"It's not _that_ bad-"

"We are no longer related!"

"Hey…"

"I am revoking your Krillin privileges!"

" **Hey**!"

"He's right about one thing," Trunks said, pitching his voice low as the twins argued.

"Oh yeah?" Yamcha glanced at him, "What's that?"

"No _way_ I'm going to mistake those two for the ones from my timeline."

OoOoOoOoO

Krillin took one look at Trunks's face at supper that night and put his head on the table with a groan. "I know what you're going to ask and yes, yes they are always like that. Especially the at-each-others'-throats-one-minute-tag-teaming-your-sorry-ass-the-next bit. You get used to it. They grow on you. Like lichen."

"Don't you mean like mushrooms?" Pu'ar asked, confused.

"No," Krillin shook his head gloomily, "Mushrooms are easy to get rid of."

"Aw, come on, we're not that bad," 17 grinned from across the table.

18 glared at her twin. "Don't talk to him, you lost your Krillin privileges, remember?"

"Wait, you were _serious_?!"

"As Vegeta talking about surpassing Goku."

"Dammit, I _will_ surpass him!"

"Case in point."

"Aw~ Krillin, she's being mean to me, make her stop!"

"He was wearing a mustache, Krillin, a false handlebar mustache!"

"It was awesome!"

" _It was brown_!"

Krillin sighed and rubbed his forehead. "17?"

"Yeeeeees~?"

"Quit it."

"Aw~…"

"And 18, 17 can talk to me if he wants unless _I_ say otherwise – no matter how himself he's being."

"Fine," 18 rolled her eyes, "But he's sleeping somewhere else tonight for being more obnoxious than usual."

"Fair?" Krillin glanced at 17, who considered then nodded.

"Fair."

"Good," Krillin smiled, "And since _I_ had to be the responsible one, you guys get to make breakfast tomorrow."

"…what exactly _is_ their relationship with each other?" Yamcha asked Lunch quietly where she sat beside him.

"Consensual," she replied cheerfully.

He glanced back at the three in question, who were now discussing Krillin's experiences with the Planet Trade and potential strategies to fight the invaders as though they hadn't been squabbling like children moment before. "Fair enough, I guess."

OoOoOoOoO

Vegeta pulled Trunks aside after supper, rather literally, simply reaching out and snagging the future version of his son as they passed in the hallway and giving Yamcha a look that very clearly said 'keep walking' when the bandit tried to protest.

Yamcha swallowed, gave Trunks a helpless look, and kept walking.

"Dad?" Trunks managed as Vegeta pulled him into a nearby room, "Is something wrong?"

Vegeta had closed the door and was now standing with his back to Trunks. If the youth hadn't known better, he'd almost have said the prince was bracing himself for something. Finally Vegeta spoke, his voice low. "You will not tell anyone what I am about to tell you. Do you understand?"

Trunks swallowed and nodded. "Yes sir."

"Good." Vegeta turned to face him, opened his mouth, winced, closed it, then, with a pained expression, sad, "Raditz is not… a complete idiot about everything all the time."

Trunks blinked, rather unsure how to take this. "Um…"

"Quiet!" Vegeta snapped, "I'm not done!" he braced himself again and continued, "The thing that hairball is… correct… about is this: the rest of us don't pay as close attention to all of our sense as we might. When you train with the twins, pay attention to their scent. It's faint, but very distinctive, and it lingers and carries longer and farther than a normal human's, making it possible to track them even without ki in certain circumstances." He folded his arms and turned away again, "That is all, you may continue on now."

Trunks stared at his father for a moment, then began to smile. "Dad… that-"

"We never had this conversation!" Vegeta interrupted, "If you tell anyone I'll break your legs!"

Trunks gulped and nodded, "Yes sir!"

OoOoOoOoO

"Hey Mirai," Yamcha sat up from where he'd been lying on their bed, already in his nightshirt, "What was that about?"

"Just my dad being weirdly helpful," Trunks grinned, going to sit next to him, "I'm not allowed to talk about it, basically on pain of pain."

"Okay," he leaned on Trunks, "Tell me when we get to your time and he's not there to carry out his threat?"

Trunks blinked then laughed, "Sure, why not," he let his head drop onto Yamcha's shoulder, "How's that ki technique of yours coming along, by the way? I thought I saw you working on it while I trained with the androids today."

"Yeah, I talked to Master Krillin about it last week and he had some good ideas. So did Master Shinhan – you wouldn't _believe_ how many techniques he knows!" Yamcha grinned, "Wanna see?"

"Okay," Trunks let his tail curl around Yamcha's waist.

The bandit straightened so that now Trunks was leaning on him and held out his right hand, palm up, gripping his wrist with his left hand and focusing. Ki began to gather and pool, smoothly answering his call – it was shocking to think that when Trunks had first met him he hadn't known the first thing about ki manipulation, and it had been a few months shy of a year since then. Finally, Yamcha murmured, "Sokidan," and a small sphere emerged from his palm to hover over it, throwing off blue-white light.

"You're getting faster at that," Trunks said softly, curling closer.

"Keep watching," Yamcha's eyebrows drew together in a frown of concentration as he clenched his right hand into a fist, "Condense!"

The sphere obediently shrank in on itself, growing brighter as it did so, and Trunks squinted in the light. "That's new."

"Yeah," Yamcha nodded, "I got the idea from the False Moon, actually. It's way faster like this, and more durable, too. Takes more effort to maintain, though." He held it for a few moments longer, then dismissed it. "I'm gonna get Raditz to teach me the actual False Moon technique, too."

"What?" Trunks frowned, tilting his head to look at him, "Why?"

"Could be useful. You know, in the event you can't do it for some reason and need to transform," Yamcha's right hand dropped down, stroking the end of Trunks's tail where it curled around his hip. Trunks sighed and relaxed against him further.

"That's nice."

"Mmm…" Yamcha was quiet for a moment. "We'll be leaving soon, won't we? You did pretty well against those two today. It won't take long for you to pass them."

"Probably not," Trunks admitted, "I think… if things keep up at their current rate, we'll be here another month or two, three at the most. You gonna be sad to go?"

Yamcha frowned, not looking at Trunks. "That's… hard. This lifestyle, the luxury… it's nice. And I like training with the Z Warriors, I've never had proper teachers before. At the same time…" he pulled one leg up to his chest, resting his chin on it, "I don't think I'd fit in here, not during peacetime. The city… it's so big and crowded. Here in Capsule Corp- Kung Pao's big, but this place is huge! I'm still getting lost if I stray off the paths I know. And… what would I do? All I know is fighting and survival. There's no call for either here." He leaned his head on Trunks's, "At least going with you, I'll have a useful skill set. Gonna miss the kitchen, though."

"I know what you mean," Trunks agreed quietly, "Here there's just so much of everything. It's strange." He put an arm around Yamcha and they sat quietly, one from the past, one from the future, united by the fact that neither of them quiet fit into this time the people around them called the present, a place so different from the much harsher existences they were used to. It was strange not to have to keep a close eye on the larder and calculate how far the food would stretch, when the next supply run would have to be made. Strange to go out in public without the need to keep an ear cocked for danger or to being carrying a weapon or two (Yamcha had been yelled at multiple times for hiding knives in his clothes, and Trunks got twitchy if he capped his power below a certain level). It was strange training with beings that Trunks had been taught all his life to fear and hate, to discuss strategy with 18 and laugh at 17's jokes.

But the strangest thing of all happened about eight months after the time travellers had arrived.

"It's really weird," Yamcha looked at the doorway, chin resting in his hands, "I mean, you're sitting right here next to me, but you're also over in there getting born. Very strange."

"Yeah," Trunks leaned back in his own chair, arms folded across his chest. Bulma had gone into labor that afternoon and the boys had flown over to the hospital when they found out. Now they were sitting in the waiting room, awkwardly trying to pass the time until they were allowed to go in. They were quiet for a few moments. Trunks toyed with a strand of his hair – he hadn't really bothered cutting it since he came to the past, and it was getting pretty long. He was debating with himself over finding some scissors when he got home versus just leaving it when Yamcha spoke up again.

"I can't believe your mom had clothes for _us_ prepared as well as a bag for her."

"Our usual clothes do stand out in this timeline." Trunks replied, letting his hair drop.

Yamcha huffed, "People have been wearing stuff like my casual clothes forever!"

"Not around here they haven't."

"Meh," Yamcha looked away, conceding his boyfriend's point with poor grace and shifting in the jeans and t-shirt he'd been given. "They're not very comfortable."

Trunks gave a snort of laughter, "I can't argue with that."

"You look nice, though," Pu'ar looked up from her magazine, then at the clock, "She's been in there for awhile, hasn't she? Think she's okay?"

"Yeah," Trunks replied, reaching over to give the small shape-shifter a reassuring head rub, "Mom's always told me I took my sweet time coming out."

"Oh. Okay, then."

"How's 16 doing?"

"Well, we found him again, so that's good-"

"Wait, _found him_?" Yamcha glanced down at his friend, "I didn't think he had a new vessel yet, how did you _lose_ him?!"

"He got loose on the internet," Pu'ar explained, "We finally found him hanging out in the code for the security cameras at a bird sanctuary. I told you when we lost him!" she added with an annoyed twitch of her whiskers.

"Yeah, but I think that was the night he had the concussion," Trunks cut in, "So it's understandable if he doesn't remember."

"How's he doing? Still want to be a bird?" Yamcha interrupted before they could get onto the topic of exactly _how_ he'd gotten said head injury (it had been embarrassing enough at the time, he didn't need it brought up _again_ ).

"Yeah, but he says he might settle for being humanoid for now, since Bulma's gonna be busy with the baby and preparing for the invasion," Pu'ar said. They chatted about 16 and Pu'ar's explorations of the past/future for awhile before drifting back into silence, watching the clock and wondering how things were going.

Eventually a nurse came in and walked over to them. "Misters Yamcha and Mirai, and Miss Pu'ar?"

"Yes?" Trunks stood up quickly.

The nurse smiled at him. "If you could come with me? Ms. Bulma has asked for you."

OoOoOoOoO

Dr. Briefs and Bunny were already in the room when the time travellers got there, standing near Bulma and cooing over the baby in her arms. Off to one side Vegeta was lurking in a corner, smirking slightly with his arms folded.

"-ost ridiculous battle I've ever seen," he was saying as they entered, and Bulma glared at him.

"That wasn't a battle, it was _labour_! And you were supposed to hold my hand and be supportive, not stand in the corner and laugh!"

"Oops," Vegeta replied, sounding entirely unrepentant.

Bulma huffed, then turned to the teens. "Hey kids. Mirai, come meet the newest member of the Briefs family!" And she held her baby up slightly.

Her baby with bright blue sticky-up hair.

Trunks walked over slowly, crouched down to get a closer look, then gazed up at the woman who, in another time, was his mother. "That's not me."

"No," Bulma agreed, a slightly wistful note in her smile, " _She_ isn't. Trunks, say hello to your older sister, Bra."

Trunks stared at the baby girl. She gave him a slightly cross-eyed look, her eyes unable to function properly just yet. So. He didn't exist in this timeline. He'd actually erased himself from existence, and for the millionth time he wondered what his boyfriend was supposed to have done, that his absence had changed so much. Hesitantly he reached out and ran a gentle finger along the baby's cheek, feeling her ki as he did so. It was small at the moment – she was just as tired from the birthing process as her mother and didn't have the sass to hide it yet – but it was strong. He smiled.

"Hi, Bra. I'm your brother, and I hope your life turns out better than mine."

OoOoOoOoO

"I think I would have liked it," he said quietly to Yamcha that night, Pu'ar curled up on the pillow over Yamcha's head, "Having an older sister, or an older sibling at all. It would have been nice."

"Wasn't Gohan like your brother?" Pu'ar asked, voice soft and sleepy.

"No, he was my teacher," Trunks replied, "He was ten years older than me and constantly trying to stop the androids when he wasn't training me. Having someone closer to my age, who understood… it would have been nice."

Yamcha pulled him closer, brushing a kiss on his forehead. "Well _now_ you've got someone. Though I'd prefer it if you didn't think of me as a brother either."

Trunks snorted, "Wow, way to make everything weird." But he stayed cuddled up close anyway.

OoOoOoOoO

Trunks stood frozen, arm and fist still extended.

In a crater thirty feet away 17 carefully pried one arm out of the bedrock and delicately held up his hand, two fingers raised in a summoning gesture. "Waiter? Cheque please." Then he let his arm drop again. "Ow."

"What, really?" Trunks walked over and crouched at the crater's lip, "You're done?"

"Yes," the black-haired man said firmly from his prone position, "You hit hard in your base state? You should be just fine against evil me in super. And 18, just so you know, you can feel free to stop that any time now."

"I know," 18 replied, continuing her slow clap for another minute or so before she got up and walked over. "Don't know why you stayed so long, though, kid – you had us beaten as a yellow monkey months ago."

"Golden Oozaru," Trunks corrected, though without any real hope that she'd pay attention, "And I want to keep that as my trump card. Mom… awhile ago she told me that she went to Gero's lab one time, after you two joined the group. She was looking for your blueprints in case you ever needed a tune-up or something."

"Oh, yeah, I remember that," 18 nodded as 17 continued to dislodge himself from the ground, "What about it?"

Trunks fidgeted, uncomfortable, "She told me she went through the whole place and… she found something, in the lowest level, a hidden lab. It was all flooded and broken up, there must have been a storm or something, but… she managed to recover some data, about another project, a contingency plan in case you two failed on your own."

17 frowned, sitting up. "We were the last ones Gero made, though – he called 18 his greatest triumph, the bastard. It was probably just a scrapped project he had a computer running data on – he did that sometimes."

Trunks shook his head. "Mom didn't think so – she said there was something in one of the tubes, something dead. She still had my dad fly there and atomize it for her. And you know my mom – he doesn't scare easily."

"You got that right," 18 murmured.

"Anyway," Trunks continued, offering 17 a hand up, "If she was that worried over something already dead… I'm not taking any chances with this. I want power to spare when I go back, and I don't want _anyone_ to know I have it. I'm the last Z Warrior – it's on me to keep the world safe."

18 smirked. "I think your boyfriend would argue about you being the only one left to defend the Earth."

"Nah, he's right."

They all looked up to where the self-proclaimed bandit lord had wandered over from his own solo training to join the conversation. Grinning, he jumped down into the crater and landed next to Trunks.

"I told you already, I'm a selfish guy; I don't care about the world," he bumped shoulders with Trunks, "Just you. Keep the world safe if you want – I'll watch your back while you do it"

18 snorted, "You really _are_ from the past, aren't you? No one talks like that anymore."

"Leave him alone," Trunks said mildly, "I like it." He bumped his shoulder against Yamcha's as well and they grinned at each other.

"Sickeningly cute," 18 grumbled, but she also had a faint smile on her face.

"All the more reason to send them packing," 17 dusted himself off and glanced at the time travellers, "You _are_ leaving soon, I take it?"

"Yeah," Trunks nodded, glancing at Yamcha, "Tomorrow?"

"Or the day after. You know," Yamcha's lips quirked, "Depending on your mom."

"Yeah," Trunks nodded again, "One way or another, within two days… we're going home."

OoOoOoOoO

For such a momentous occasion, the preparations were surprisingly simple – a matter of re-pacing their things (it didn't take long (and it was amazing how different the room looked without Yamcha's futon by the bed or Trunks's sword propped in the corner or the books on advanced shape-shifting Pu'ar had been reading scattered about)), adding a few items Bulma thought might be useful to their timeline, and calling the group together once more to see them all off. Yamcha thanked his teachers again and received several wishes of good luck, Trunks got a brief nod from his father and a hug from his mother before he deployed the time machine, turning back one last time before getting in.

"You're _sure_ you don't want me to come back and check that everything's going okay at some point?"

Krillin grinned and waved him off. "We've got it covered – thanks for the warning, though. And good luck with your androids!"

"Thanks," he smiled slightly, then flew up to where Yamcha was already seated and waiting for him. He snorted as he sat down in his boyfriend's lap. "It's more crowded this time."

"We've grown," Yamcha shrugged, fingering a seam where he'd had to add more fabric to his tunic.

Pu'ar settled so she was seated on the console, waving out the window as they lifted off. "Hey guys?"

"Yeah?" Trunks asked a little distractedly as he finished double-checking the coordinates.

The little shape-shifter turned to them with a smile. "We made a good timeline, didn't we?"

Yamcha chuckled as he leaned over Trunks's shoulder, arms around his waist. "Yeah, I think we did. Mirai?"

Trunks looked down one last time at the eclectic group of friends and family that had come to see them off – humans and saiyans and cyborgs and Piccolo – and smiled. "Yeah. No regrets."

"None," Yamcha agreed.

And then, in a flash of light, they were in another time and place.

OoOoOoOoO

"Trunks? Did it work?"

Trunks's face broke into a grin at the familiar voice and surroundings – third time really was the charm. "Mom!" popping the hatch open he jumped down to run over to where his mother was standing, with her old baseball cap and the familiar lines on her face. "It did! We did it, Mom!" laughing he hugged her, then spun her around. "I missed you!"

"Yeah, well, I didn't – it's only been two minutes," she huffed, though without heat, "Kami, Trunks, how long were you in the past?! You've grown-" her words cut off abruptly as she stiffened in his arms.

Letting her down, Trunks turned to see the direction she was looking and saw his boyfriend climbing out of the time machine. "Oh yeah, Mom, this is-"

"Yamcha." The name was barely a breath, and then his mother was gone from his arms, running to fling herself on the confused youth, where she clung to him, "Oh kami, Yamcha, you're okay, you're _alive_ ," she started to shake as she spoke, a few tears sliding down her cheeks, "You're okay…"

OoOoOoOoO

 _To everyone who found my descriptions of future Yamcha in the last chapter to be overly harsh and cruel, I would like to point out two things: first, that Trunks, the bearer of this news, is a second-hand source of information who received his information from Bulma (who can be somewhat unreliable for this sort of thing) and, second…_

 _I, the author, never once said he was right. ;)_

 _In regards to Krillin, 17, and 18, one of their 'rules' is that if one of them has to be the 'responsible one' for the other two, then they don't have to help with the next meal or its clean-up. Amazingly, Krillin is not always the responsible one, though he does mediate between the twins a fair bit._

 _It caused Vegeta physical pain to say anything positive about Raditz. He had to go have a lie-down afterwards._

 _Bulma didn't realize she was actually having a girl because Trunks showed up and she went 'huh, well, guess that answers that' and didn't bother to double-check._

 _Comfort is extremely subjective. Yamcha's never worn clothes like this before, at least in this universe, so to him they're very weird and uncomfortable, and Trunks isn't used to wearing clothes in quite this style, so he's not comfortable either._

 _Also… I did some calculations and was startled to realize we've only got two chapters left of this. Honestly, that's one of the reasons I took so long to update this chapter. With Geta!verse's completion also just around the corner, it was a jolt to realize both of these would be finished soon…_


	11. Tae Time

Chapter 11: Tae Time

" _Trunks? Did it work?"_

 _Trunks's face broke into a grin at the familiar voice and surroundings – third time really was the charm. "Mom!" popping the hatch open he jumped down to run over to where his mother was standing, with her old baseball cap and the familiar lines on her face. "It did! We did it, Mom!" laughing he hugged her, then spun her around. "I missed you!"_

" _Yeah, well, I didn't – it's only been two minutes," she huffed, though without heat, "Kami, Trunks, how long were you in the past?! You've grown-" her words cut off abruptly as she stiffened in his arms._

 _Letting her down, Trunks turned to see the direction she was looking and saw his boyfriend climbing out of the time machine. "Oh yeah, Mom, this is-"_

" _Yamcha." The name was barely a breath, and then his mother was gone from his arms, running to fling herself on the confused youth, where she clung to him, "Oh kami, Yamcha, you're okay, you're_ _ **alive**_ _," she started to shake as she spoke, a few tears sliding down her cheeks, "You're okay…"_

Trunks stared for a moment before the zeni dropped. "Wait, you're THAT Yamcha?! But- you can't be, you're nothing like him-" he brought his hands up to rub his temples, "Oh shit, no _wonder_ so much changed…"

Yamcha, meanwhile, was looking between the two with growing confusion and fear. "I- Mirai? What's going on? Ms. Bulma?" he put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back, "What's wrong? I didn't think I'd have met you in this timeline."

Bulma stiffened. "In this-" then she looked at him, _really_ looked at him, traced the smooth skin of his left cheek with a thumb, "You're still just a kid…"

Yamcha glared, stepping back. "I'm seventeen, I'm not a kid. And I was trained by-"

"-Master Muten Roshi, I know," Bulma interrupted with an aching smile, only for Yamcha to frown at her.

"What? No, Masters Shinhan, Krillin, and Lunch. Raditz taught me some stuff, too."

" _ **Raditz**_?!" Bulma gaped at him, then turned to her son. "Trunks, sweetie? _**What did you do to the past**_?!"

"Well, for starters?" Trunks rubbed the back of his neck, "The time machine was miscalibrated and I went back farther than I was supposed to."

"And?" Bulma folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.

Trunks winced. "And I…kinda maybe sorta stole your boyfriend before you met him?" he asked more than answered. "In my defence," he added in the resulting silence as his mother and boyfriend both gaped at him, "I did not know he was the same Yamcha as your Yamcha!"

"Um, excuse me? Lord Yamcha?" they all looked up to see Pu'ar peering nervously out of the time machine at them. "Is it safe to come down yet?"

"…yeah, it's safe," the young bandit replied after another wary look at Bulma, walking over and holding up his arms to his friend, "Come on down."

Pu'ar hestitated a moment longer, then hopped down and let him catch her. Bulma blinked at the two of them, one hand covering her mouth, and Trunks swallowed. His mom was in her fifties, he knew that logically, but… this was the first time he'd ever seen her actually look it. "…Mom?"

She started as he put his arms around her, and gave him an unconvincing grin. "Why I thought this would be simple I do not know – you are related to me, after all." Her eyes drifted back to the time travellers and her smile grew pained. "I- come on. Let's go inside before we get spotted; you can explain it all to me in there."

OoOoOoOoO

Bulma had sat quietly as Trunks told her about his adventures in the past, sitting together in the living room of the shelter, her eyes occasionally staying to the other young man seated next to her son on the couch when he added onto the story as he deemed necessary – tails and bandits, Z Warriors and technical malfunctions, desert encounters and blossoming romance.

Afterwards Bulma got up, went over to a drawer, and pulled out a handful of papers, flipping through them until she found the one she wanted. Then she walked back over and handed it to Trunks. It was an old photo of her and of a man her age, with gelled black hair and some impressive facial scars. They were watching a baby Trunks examine a leaf that had blown onto their picnic blanket and laughing.

"This was taken with you were a few months old," she said quietly, "A bit before the androids first appeared."

Trunks stared at the photo in confusion. "But… I thought you hated him. I thought he cheated on you and broke your heart."

Bulma started, then laughed, the first proper laugh he'd heard from her since she'd seen his tag-alongs. "Cheat? _Yamcha_? Where would you get an idea like that?!"

"You said you yelled at him about cheating all the time!"

"Well, _yeah_. I never said I was _right_ ," Bulma raised an amused eyebrow at him, "You may not have realized this, Trunks, but sometimes Mommy can be kinda jealous and make baseless accusations. And had kind of a low opinion of men's ability to stay true when she was younger…" her smile grew sad again as she looked at the photo, "We dated on and off again for fifteen years before we… well, it took us both awhile to grow up enough to realize we weren't good for each other – not like that…"

Trunks handed the picture to Yamcha as he got up to give his mom another hug. Yamcha, for his part, kept his gaze on the image, eyes locked on the man in it. When he finally spoke his tone was confused. "Mirai… that's me. That's kinda _obviously_ me. How- how did you not make the connection?" his voice was quiet, with a hint of fear.

Trunks shrugged helplessly from where he stood. "Mom never told me how she met… other you; I never asked. I was always more interested in hearing about my dad than him," he frowned down at the picture, "Plus, there's the scars. And the hair. Never do that to your hair."

"I will never do that to my hair," Yamcha agreed, though his smile was half-hearted as he looked between the picture, Bulma, and the youth he'd given up everything he'd known for. "So… what now? I mean," he shook his head, frustrated, glaring at the picture, "This isn't me. I mean, it _is_ , obviously, but… it's _not_. I mean…" he gave Trunks a helpless look, "Is this the part where it gets too weird and I lose you?"

"What? No!" Trunks gave his mom an apologetic look, then went back to the couch and pulled the bandit to his feet so they were at eye level with each other, "That guy, that's my mom's Yamcha. You're _my_ Yamcha – you met my mom for the first time when we went to the past-future, you're a year younger than me, you learned how to fly from _me_ , you're not him." He pulled his boyfriend into a hug, tail wrapping halfway around both their waists, "What he did doesn't matter. No regrets."

"No regrets," Yamcha smiled and leaned into him with a relieved sigh, "Thanks." They held their position for a moment before Yamcha glanced at Bulma and frowned. "What?"

"Hm?" Bulma blinked, then wiped her eyes with a bit of a smile, "Nothing, just… old memories." She shook her head and chuckled, "And, honestly, I hadn't expected _anything_ like this. I… had braced myself for the chance that Goku might be along for the ride, but not you. I'm… just… Trunks, please tell me you found a way to beat them? I don't think I can bear watching this idiot die a third time."

"A _third_ time?! What do you-" Yamcha started, but Trunks interrupted him

"Yeah," he said, voice quiet but firm, "I trained while I was in the past, a lot, like you heard. I can do it now, Mom – I can win this time."

"Good," Bulma nodded, then, finally, turned to Yamcha again, the first time she'd really looked at him with no ghosts in her eyes since they'd come inside. Hesitantly she smiled at him. "I suppose I can't beat you up, either – from what Trunks said you were a perfect gentleman. As freaking always," she rubbed a hand over her face and sighed, "I'm sorry, I'll do my best, but this will take some getting used to."

"I'm… honestly surprised you're not freaking out more," Yamcha admitted, and Bulma laughed.

"Sweetie, from what I've heard you should know me better than that. I ran with the Z Warriors, after all. It's just… he was one of my best friends; even after we broke up for good, we were close. And I miss him – all of them – so much. Seeing you, Yamcha… it reminded me how much." She turned back to Trunks before he could respond, switching topics abruptly. "Well, fascinating as all this is, we've got a whole lot of not killing androids going on. Trunks? Show him to your room so he can put his stuff away and I'll go get on the radio – enough time's passed, those menaces have probably gotten up to something by now."

"…my room?" Trunks asked, surprised, "Not- not the spare room or couch?"

Bulma gave him a very dry look. "You've been dating him for nearly a year – if you aren't at least sleeping with him platonically by now then I'm rescinding your right to call yourself a Briefs. Especially when I know _exactly_ how much he likes to snuggle." Tossing a wave over her shoulder at the two gaping teens, she strode out of the room. "Let's get cracking, boys, we've got a robot apocalypse to end! Pu'ar, you're with me – I assume you know how to work a radio?"

"You bet!" Pu'ar squeaked, bobbing up from the couch to give Yamcha a pat on the cheek before zipping over to circle Bulma a couple times and follow her from the room. The boys stood in silence, watching them go.

"…this is gonna be so weird, isn't it?" Yamcha finally asked as Bulma's footsteps faded down the hall.

"Almost certainly," Trunks rubbed his temples, glancing at him, "Is this the bit where it gets too weird for _you_?"

"Psh, you kidding?" Yamcha raised an eyebrow, stepping closer to his boyfriend and bumping shoulders with him, "I only came here for one reason, remember? And he's right here next to me." Turning Trunks's head with one hand, he placed a gentle kiss on his lips, smiling into it. "Come on, Mirai – show me where our room is so you can find those monsters and get on with rebuilding the world."

Trunks gave him a small smile. "I thought you didn't care about the world."

"Oh I don't," Yamcha reassured him cheerfully, "But you do, so that gives me a good reason to pretend to."

"You're terrible," Trunks laughed, pushing him away with one hand.

"I am," Yamcha agreed, eyes sparkling, "And you love it."

"I do," Trunks agreed as well, "I really do. Come on, follow me – and pay close attention, okay, we've got some… security measures you'll want to avoid."

"…you and your mom have this whole placed rigged to the gills, don't you?"

"Um," Trunks blushed, "It's- I mean- yes. Yes we do. Don't touch anything with flowers on it, you won't get your hand back."

Yamcha followed with a mixture of interest, attentiveness, and somewhat morbid curiosity as Trunks led him down several corridors, listening as the older teen explained the various security measures and tells to him. They didn't make it to the bedroom, though. Halfway there Bulma came skidding down a side hall, grim-faced. "Thank Kai, you're here – I've got a location on them."

"Where are they?" Trunks halted, body language becoming more tense as he turned to her.

"You know how they've been leaving district 47 alone?"

Trunks went pale. "I- no, that's- the hospital is-"

"Not anymore," Bulma cut him off, not giving him time to process his thoughts, "Or, if it is, it won't be for long."

The demi-saiyan swore and handed Yamcha his sword and capsule case. "Hold onto these for me?"

"Sure," Yamcha wedged the case into his satchel, holding the sheathed sword in one hand. "Kiss?"

"For luck?"

"Psh, like you need that," Yamcha wrinkled his nose, "I just wanna kiss you."

Trunks blinked, then laughed and gave him a quick peck before belting down the hall.

"And the next fight I'm going too!" Yamcha bellowed after him through cupped hands before leaning against the wall and grinning in the direction he'd gone. After a moment he turned to Bulma, who was regarding him with a raised eyebrow, and became abruptly aware again of the fact that this was not the Bulma he had known for the past year and who had assured him many times that he had nothing to be shy about when being openly affectionate with Trunks (within reason, of course). He shifted uncomfortably. "What?"

"You really aren't him, are you?" she asked quietly.

He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck as Pu'ar joined them again, coming to perch on his shoulder. "I guess not. I mean, I wouldn't know – I've never met him, and I didn't meet the you from my timeline until you were already in a committed relationship with Vegeta." He hesitated, glancing at her. "Do you miss your Vegeta too?"

She shook her head ruefully. "It wasn't like that here, he wasn't… _my_ Vegeta. Just Vegeta, a guy I knew and slept with for awhile. I'm grateful to him for donating to the creation of Trunks, but… I was never close to him like I was with Yamcha-" she winced, "-damn, this is going to get confusing fast."

Yamcha watched her for a few moments, considering, before nodding to himself and stepping towards her. "If it makes things easier, you can call me 'Tae.'" His mouth quirked at her surprised expression and he shrugged. "I may not know you specifically, but the Bulma from my timeline was cool and I liked her, and you're Mirai's mom – I don't want to be at odds with you. Besides," he grinned, "This isn't the first time I've taken a new name to go with a new life, and if it makes all this easier for you, well…"

"Oh," Bulma blinked, "That's- It's very sweet of you to- wait, _what_?! Yamcha's not your real name!?"

His eyes sparkled and Pu'ar giggled on his shoulder as he smirked at her. "What, you didn't guess? I'm surprised, you being so smart – no one's _born_ with a cool name like 'Yamcha.' Anyway," he straightened up, then bowed formally from the waist, "My name is Lord Tae of Diablo Desert, and this is my friend and associate, Pu'ar of the Thousand Shapes – we're very pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you!" Pu'ar echoed cheerfully, bouncing on her friend's shoulder and giggling.

Bulma hesitated for a moment, then smiled as well and bowed back. "Bulma Briefs, gracefully aging genius. It's nice to meet you as well, Pu'ar, Tae – and to know that my son has inherited my good taste."

OoOoOoOoO

It was strange. Flying towards district 47 to do something he'd dreamed of doing his whole life, knowing that he could _finally_ win, yet… also not entirely sure he _could_ pull this off. He was strong enough, yes, knew his enemies' weaknesses, but… he also knew how what they could have been, _who_ they could have been, if circumstances had been different. Maybe it had been a mistake to train with the alternate timeline's androids, to get to know them as people…

He saw them well before they saw him – 18 was throwing blasts at a building in what looked like nothing so much as a fit of pique, 17 watching her with a raised eyebrow. And a memory from Trunks's training rose unbidden to his mind. He'd been taking a break from sparring with 18, the cyborg's slightly ripped vest the only sign that she'd been doing anything other than taking a light stroll through the scrublands they were in.

"17's stronger," he'd panted, wiping off his forehead, "Why are you so hard to beat?!"

"Strength isn't everything," came the cool-toned reply, "My primary augmentations aren't like 17's – he's got that weird limitless power core that makes him so strong, he's meant to fight like the saiyans do, to overwhelm his opponents with his raw strength. Gero was afraid that wouldn't be enough, though, that he might have underestimated how powerful they could get. He was paranoid like that.

"Which is why he made me. I am designed to be a tactical fighter – my primary augmentations are in my brain and nervous system, allowing me to analyse a situation and react faster than my enemies. Power means nothing if you never get a chance to use it. I am designed to never give my opponent that chance.

"When you return to your time, take me out first. Don't give me a chance to see how you fight or to retreat and form a strategy. My brain is my weapon – don't give me a chance to use it."

This 18 didn't look like she was using her brain – she didn't look like she was thinking at all. The angry, snarling android was nothing like the cool, poised cyborg from the other timeline, these weren't the people he knew. At this point, who knew if they were people at all? More like twisted caricatures of what was and what could have been.

Trunks raised an arm, charged a blast.

It hadn't been a mistake at all.

They were nothing alike.

OoOoOoOoO

Afterwards he stood there for a moment, staring at the place 17 had been. They were… gone. The androids were gone. He had killed them. It was ov-

' _-found a- a_ _ **thing**_ _in the ruins, already dead, thank Kami. It was insectoid only… not. Made me sick just looking at it, to be honest…'_

-not quite over. Gathering his ki, Trunks rose up and headed home. They had a trip to make – and possibly a little monster hunting to do. Because like hell Trunks was going to let some random science experiment destroy what they'd worked so hard to create.

OoOoOoOoO

 _Okay, before anything else… please review? Like, just a line or two, or an "I enjoyed this?" I've put a lot of work into this fic, into all my fics and, honestly, I don't get a lot of feedback, and it's discouraging. I write for myself, yes, but I share for all of you, and I want to know what you think._

 _Bulma seems to be remarkably good at rolling with certain types of punches in the show. She easily accepts both versions of Trunks when she learns the truth and, I dunno. She just strikes me as the type who would easily grasp that Tae and Yamcha are two different people who have many similarities while not actually being the same person anymore – Tae is seventeen, Yamcha died at age thirty-three or so, Bulma's about fifty. Tae is quite literally not the Yamcha she remembers best. Plus, while this could easily have been highly traumatic, I didn't want it to be. This is meant to be a fun fic, not an overly-painful one. I'll get into the somewhat more realistic emotional portrayal in another fic._

 _Tae does actually care about the world, but he will deny it with his dying breath, or at least until he's older._

" _Thank Kai" – Bulma knows for a fact that, in this universe at least, god is dead. So, being the sensible lady she is, she moved to the next person up in the chain of command that she's aware of – King Kai._

 _Trunks still generally calls Tae 'Yamcha' and uses 'Tae' as a nickname/pet name, similar to Mirai._

 _Finally, I miscalculated – the next chapter will be the second-to-last chapter, not the last one, and the final chapter will actually be split in two as the chapter proper and a short epilogue. The next chapter may be a little shorter than usual, but I promise that what it lacks in size it will make up for in content. ;)_


	12. Go Time

Chapter 12: Go Time

Trunks entered the abandoned lab cautiously, his mother and Yamcha close behind. It had been two weeks since he'd destroyed the androids, and the only reason he'd waited so long was because they'd insisted on coming. His boyfriend he trusted to know his own limits, but his mother… he still remembered that incident when he was five, with the welding torch. And the one when he was seven and a half, with the robot. And the one when he was nine, with the explosives. And the- well, basically, he knew his mother. And while it was somewhat impressive that her confidence in her own immortality had survived the deaths of her friends and the android apocalypse unscathed, it had also made for some rather heart-stopping memories in hindsight.

Unfortunately she'd countered his perfectly reasonable arguments about strength, durability, and safety with the fact that she was Bulma fucking Briefs and she hadn't come this far without taking a few risks, and also that she would almost certainly understand whatever was in Gero's lab better than he or Tae would. And while Trunks might have argued the first point, he was forced to concede the second, taking quiet comfort in the fact that at least Pu'ar was content to stay and hold down the house/fortress while they were out.

Thus a compromise had been reached: she could come with them, but only if she was properly armed. Which meant he'd had to give her some time to put something together – a task he'd expected her to request his help with, as they'd been working on some potential weapons capable of at least distracting the androids for awhile now. Work on the time machine and limited resources meant the going had been slow, though, and he was a bit worried about how long the crafting process would take.

Instead she'd grabbed Yamcha by the kerchief and dragged him and his arsenal off to her lab for awhile, giggling to herself about finally getting a proper base to work off of. The demi-saiyan had followed, understandably concerned, entered to find Yamcha deploying said arsenal, and…

…Trunks had been aware that his boyfriend had a cache of weapons, especially various blades, but he had forgotten Yamcha was also quite comfortable with an _extremely_ wide range firearms as well. His mother was unsurprised. Well, she had been unsurprised by the presence of them. The _quantity_ was another matter.

"Seriously, Tae, _Yamcha_ didn't bring this many, and he'd just helped fight Oozaru Goku _and_ Pilaf and everything! What did Trunks _tell you_ about this place?!"

He'd shrugged, unconcerned and unapologetic. "That we were coming to a time when humanity was being wiped out. I wanted to be prepared and I wasn't very good with ki yet, so I made sure I'd have plenty of stuff on-hand I knew how to use."

Bulma had raised an eyebrow. "He _did_ tell you that these things wouldn't have worked on the deathbots, right?"

"Obviously," Tae had rolled his eyes.

"Then why bring them?"

He'd given her a look like _she_ was the slow one. "For one? Hunting – it's easier to hunt with a rifle than a handgun. Also because I've seen first-hand what _humans_ can get like in situations like this. The death of the androids doesn't mean everything will automatically be perfect – peace takes time. And a proper lord is always prepared to defend what's his." He hadn't said 'obviously,' but it had still come through quite clearly. Then he'd stepped forward to recommend a particular piece for modification and Trunks had been shooed out on the grounds that he knew absolutely nothing about firearms and they didn't feel like teaching him at that moment.

Bulma was actually carrying the recommended weapon now – Trunks wasn't sure what she'd done with it exactly, and even Yamcha hadn't been privy to the final tests, but she'd renamed it the 'Ka-Fucking- _Boom_ gun,' and he'd helped her wire enough explosives to trust her on this.

Yamcha was glancing about warily, a sokidan floating over one shoulder, ready if he needed it and also acting as a light source. Trunks was sticking close to them both, unwilling to let them go far on their own. "This place doesn't look like it's been abandoned for twenty years."

"It hasn't been," Bulma said quietly, pointing, "See those cables? I'd bet you my last pair of pretty shoes that they're connected to a generator somewhere around here; this place has power. Plus, no dust build-up."

"Plus, tracks," Yamcha added, gesturing with the hand not controlling the sokidan when the other two looked at him, "The wear marks on the floor – whoever it is always uses the same path. They're faint, but they're there."

"Right," Trunks nodded, spotting them now that they'd been pointed out, "Looks like whoever it is goes downstairs a lot, so-"

"Well aren't you clever?"

All three of them tensed, then turned back towards the open doorway where a… _thing_ was standing, tall, green, and a mixture of humanoid and insectoid that was more than a little nauseating to look at, a long tail with a stinger on the end waving behind it. The thing smirked at them, stepping inside. "I'll admit, this _is_ a pleasant surprise, my meals don't usually come to me. And Trunks – just the person I wanted to-"

"CONDENSE!"

"OW!"

The thing stopped talking to glare at Yamcha, whose condensed sokidan had just struck it hard in the face. "THAT STUNG! Just for that I'm going to- GRARGH!"

Yamcha and Trunks stared at the place the monstrosity had been standing and the charred hole in the wall just _behind_ where it had been standing. Then they slowly turned back to Bulma, who was pumping her fist triumphantly in the air.

"That's right, KA-FUCKING- _BOOM_ , BITCH!"

"That's it!" a voice screamed in the distance, "I was already going to kill you, but now I'm going to do it with _extreme prejudice_ for this indignity!"

"Hey, Trunks?" Yamcha asked, slightly dazed.

"Yeah?"

"It's still alive," the bandit said, tone still shell-shocked, "Could you be awesome and go fix that?"

"Sure," Trunks shook his head to clear it, then started after the thing.

"Thanks."

The creature met him halfway and the collided with a crash. Just as quickly they broke apart, Trunks dodging as the thing tried to strike him with the sting on the end of its tail, then darting in for another punch. The thing caught his fist.

"So, you're the little toy 17 and 18 have been having so much fun with," it sneered, "I must say, I was expecting _more_." It kicked him in the stomach and sent him flying into the ground, cracking Trunks's head against a rock in the process and disorienting him just enough to prevent him from making the jump to super saiyan. The creature landed on him, and Trunks twisted to avoid the stinger as the monster drove it towards his face. "Look at you, lying on the ground, practically helpless, can't even go _super saiyan_. Oh yes," it leered as Trunks's eyes widened, "I know all about that, and more besides. You see, I am- ARGH!"

"NOW MIX!"

Trunks blinked. The creature was no longer on top of him. And that had sounded – and looked – like a shot fired from the Ka-Fucking-Boom gun just before the creature had gone flying. And there was a second sun in the sky- no, not a sun, more like a star-

A _familiar_ star.

Trunks felt the Oozaru transformation taking him and he roared as it did so, standing with difficulty (moving _during_ the transformation was actually quite hard) and looking around for the creature as he did so. It would be harder to avoid it at the moment, due to the new size difference, but he had a feeling that letting it sting him would be a bad-

Oh.

Apparently he didn't need to worry about that.

Because the thing was also transforming.

…huh. Trunks would have put several days rations against it, but it turned out the thing _could_ get uglier, because the patches of fur and vaguely ape-ish features were doing absolutely nothing for its looks. It stared at its hands as the transformation finished, expression horrified. Smaller than Trunks by about twenty feet, its ki had swelled massively and it still had the edge.

And it was _pissed_.

"Why you- I HATE THIS FORM!" it bellowed, charging him, "This stupid, _disgusting_ , _**imperfect**_ form!" it lashed out at him wildly, furious, "I'm not even going to absorb you anymore, _I'm going to tear you to pieces_!"

Trunks dodged its blast narrowly. "You sure about that?"

"OF COURSE I'M SURE!" it screeched, "I'm stronger than you, _faster_ than you, _**better**_ than you-"

"But I'm not in my final form."

The creature froze mid-rant. "What?"

Trunks smirked and roared as he ascended, his fur paling as he did so, ki exploding, the golden Oozaru. As the creature gaped at him, he opened his mouth, took a deep breath, and blasted ki at it, just as his father and Raditz had taught him. And when he closed his mouth again, there was nothing left of the creature but ash drifting away on the breeze.

OoOoOoOoO

"I liked the big where you changed back best," Yamcha said cheerfully afterwards, "That was an enjoyable view."

Trunks blushed. "I didn't expect to actually _find_ anything here that I'd need to use that transformation to fight," he protested, "Otherwise I'd have worn the stuff alternate-Mom made me – I _liked_ those pants I was wearing!"

"What," Yamcha smirked at him, "You saying you didn't like getting into mine?"

Trunks blushed even more hotly but rallied. "Well I'm the one enjoying the view now! I still can't believe you wear orange boxers, by the way."

"It's sensible in case my uniform tears," Bulma quipped at the same time the youth did, winking at him when he scowled at herm "And it _is_ a nice view."

" _Mom_!" Trunks protested as Yamcha blushed and tugged at the hem of his green tunic.

"What? He's got a cute butt – Yamcha did, too!"

"Please stop," Trunks groaned as Yamcha turned redder, "Please stop making this weirder than it already is or we'll just _leave_ and you can figure out how to get a two-hundred-plus pound android on the ship without us." He shifted his grip on the case currently holding his timeline's 16 – the other reason they'd come to Gero's lab in the first place. As-yet still offline, Bulma wanted to take him home and run some diagnostics on him before starting him up, to make sure none of his systems or hardware had suffered as a result of his near seventeen years in storage.

"Okay, okay," Bulma chuckled, "Just be grateful they fit you so well – Tae's got another four inches or so left in him before he hits twenty." She pulled out a capsule as they finally reached the plateau they'd arrived on in the first place and tossed it open into a plane. "Come on, boys, let's go home."

"So," Yamcha sidled up to Trunks as the other teen set down his burden in the back of the plane, "What do we do now?"

"Now?" Trunks dusted his hands off and grinned at him, "We rebuild the world, of course!"

Yamcha considered this for a moment, then shook his head. "Nah, not my style."

Trunks snorted. "Oh? And what _is_ your style, pray tell?"

The bandit winked, sliding his hand into Trunks's. "I was thinking more along the lines of living happily ever after."

Trunks gave him a rueful smile. "That only happens in stories – real life doesn't work that way."

Yamcha frowned, then put a serious hand on Trunks's shoulder. "Mirai, _Trunks_ … you just saved the world, the _entire world_. You've met every challenge, you've travelled through time," he leaned closer, smiling a bit, "And, somehow or other, we've _both_ managed to get the guy. Why the hell _shouldn't_ it be possible? Come on, Mirai," his smile widened as he leaned in closer, "Let's live happily ever after. Let's at least try."

Trunks licked his lips. "Well… I _am_ a Briefs… and we _do_ tend to make our own rules… And you're a lord – they live happily ever after all the time, right?"

Yamcha's eyes gleamed with mischief, "It is kinda the done thing."

"Well, in that case," Trunks smiled as well, "Then yeah, let's do it. Let's at least try." He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around Yamcha's shoulders, and Yamcha met him halfway.

"Hey, Tae! Pu'ar's on the radio – quit making out with my son and come reassure her that you're okay!"

Yamcha broke away laughing, "Sorry, Mirai – duty calls!"

Trunks rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as he followed the bandit lord into the cockpit to tell Pu'ar the good news.

OoOoOoOoO

 _ **Please don't forget to take a moment to review! Whether it's an enthusiastic ramble, a quick note, a simple 'bonus kudos,' or anything in-between – they all make my day and make posting worthwhile!**_

 _Hey all. I meant to have this up a lot sooner than this. Then I got rather unpleasantly sick the fourth of July, and I've been recovering ever since. Which has been really frustrating for everyone involved._

 _The Oozu-Cell plot twist occurred to me maybe ten minutes before I wrote it, and was immediately run by my sister to see if I should use it. I figure he has saiyan genetics and a tail (at least at this stage), so why not?_


	13. Making up for Lost Time

Chapter 13 – Making up for Lost Time

Bulma sat back from her wiring with a satisfied sigh and wiped her brow. It had been three months since Trunks destroyed the last of Gero's creations and, thus far, rebuilding was going well, if slowly. The world had been living in fear for twenty years, after all, and such things took time to recover from. At the very least this was one more block that had power again.

Laughter caught her attention, and she turned to see Tori half working, half playing with a group of kids, and couldn't help chuckling herself. The huge android had turned out to be a real god-send, exactly as mild-tempered and willing to help as his counterpart in the other timeline had been, though most definitely still human-shaped here, and it was amazing what a change of clothes could do. His armor replaced with a loose green shirt and dark pants, he seemed to inspire trust in the way 17 and 18 had inspired fear, and his strength was going a long ways to helping with the physical end of the rebuilding. Honestly, the hardest part had been convincing him that he needed a new name/'designation,' but Bulma had insisted on the grounds that people would likely respond more positively to a name than a number, especially given the recent past.

Not far away from the group, Tae and Pu'ar were clearing rubble out of a house that had survived with the internal structure mostly intact – it wouldn't be too hard to get it habitable again quickly. The pair had adapted well to this post-apocalyptic world – in many ways Tae was doing better than Yamcha had when he'd followed her out of the desert… had it really been almost forty years ago? Time sure flew when you were struggling to survive killer androids.

…it was still so strange seeing Tae. She was growing steadily more comfortable with him, with the idea that this wasn't her old friend but someone who just happened to look quite similar. It helped that he had kept his hair long and generally wore his old desert-style clothes or outfits similar to Trunks, rather than his bandit gear or the fashions Yamcha had preferred. He acted differently, too – much more assertive and self-assured – though there were some similarities in there as well. His love of cooking, his laugh, his close friendship with Pu'ar…

The face he made when he looked at the person he loved.

It was just so strange that, this time, that person wasn't her…

"Hey, Mom!"

She looked up as Trunks touched down beside her, grinning and carrying a box under one arm, which he offered to her.

"Lunch break!"

"Thanks, sweetie," she smiled as she selected one of the packets inside, an enticingly spicy scent drifting out, "Smells great!"

"Yeah, Yam- er," he flinched at his slip-up, " _Tae_ made them. Sorry."

"It's all right," she reassured him with a slightly arch smile, "I _am_ aware that that's what you still call him, you know. That big brain of yours comes from _my_ side of the family, remember?"

"Yes, Mom. Sorry," he squirmed, shifting the box so that it was slightly between them, "And, um, I realized the other day that I'd never actually said it, so… sorry for stealing your boyfriend."

Bulma blinked, then laughed, standing up and taking her cigarette from her mouth to give him a kiss on the forehead. "It's okay, Trunks, really it is. From what you said, other me is doing just fine without him, even if I have to question her taste in men. Besides," she turned back to Pu'ar and Tae, her smile growing fond, her tone soft, "I understand why it happened. He's easy to love. I'd almost forgotten how easy it was – as a boyfriend, as a best friend. The trick is getting him to love you back. Sometimes I wonder what things would have been like if I'd realized I'd already gotten him to earlier, before…" she was silent for a moment, then shook her head and winked at Trunks. "Oh well, what's done is done, and at least _you_ won't be making the same mistakes I did."

" _Mom_ …" Trunks groaned, his tail twitching in embarrassment behind him.

Bulma grinned, "Okay, okay, I'll stop. For now," she added at his skeptically raised eyebrow, "Sorry, kiddo, this whole situation's just too weird not to tease you about from time to time. Do your mom a favour, though?"

Trunks's brow furrowed a bit at the serious tone her voice had taken on, the pang of regret. "What?"

"Take better care of his heart than I did, okay? Don't let his spirit break."

"How do I do that?" Trunks asked, looking far more worried than she'd expected him to- but then, he would, wouldn't he? He'd always been the serious one of their odd little family…

So she chuckled and patted his shoulder, "Between you and me, I think you'll be doing a pretty good job if you keep going as you are because, I hate to say it, but you seem to have more talent than me in this area. Now go kiss that idiot senseless, okay? You both deserve it."

She took a pull on her cigarette and smiled a bit more genuinely as Trunks blushed but went over to his boyfriend. Tae turned at the hand on his shoulder with a dazzling smile and appeared more than willing to let Trunks carry out his mission. Bulma couldn't help chuckling again at the sight, at how bright and alive they looked even amid the rubble and the ruins they were clearing.

"Oh Yamcha, you really weren't meant for a soft city life, were you?"

"I really wasn't."

Bulma nearly swallowed her cigarette at the voice behind her, and it fell from her mouth entirely as she spun around to see an achingly familiar orange-clad figure standing there, short hair a little stiff because he never _could_ get the amount of gel just right, halo floating over his head, and that smile- that smile that had only ever been hers… "Yamcha! How-?!"

"Shh," he held a finger to his lips, gesturing at the younger couple she'd just been watching, not to mention Tori and his group, and then gently pulling her around a corner, out of sight, to grin at her. "Hi, B."

"Yamcha…" she gaped at him for a moment, brain trying to process this- this _impossibility_ , she'd- it had been _years_ since she's given up, assumed he couldn't- but- if he _could_ \- Her expression abruptly shifted to a scowl. "And where have you been, _huh_? You and Son and _everyone_?! You couldn't have used the One Day Back a bit sooner?! You couldn't have called in a favour or trained with King Kai for awhile and then come back and _helped_ us?! You had to leave _me_ and _Gohan_ and _**Trunks**_ to deal with this _by ourselves_?! You couldn't have-?!"

" _No_!" he interrupted her, expression pained, reaching out to put his hands on her shoulders but stopping when she stepped back, away from his touch. "Bulma, if I could have come back, I probably would have _that day_ and to hell with anything else, I wouldn't have even have thought to train in Otherworld for a bit first! But, the One Day Back thing… it turns out you can only do it if the planet you're going to has a Kami in residence. And Shen – Kami – he died with Piccolo, and _without_ a chosen successor, and it turns out that it takes a **lot** of paperwork on the Otherworld side of things to get stuff straightened out when that happens.

"We tried everything we could, Bulma, Goku even tried to sneak out with Instant Transmission. It- he didn't have a body. He got here, but none of you could even see him. We searched every avenue, every one." He stepped forward slowly, and this time she allowed herself to be drawn into a hug. "I'm so sorry – sorry I got myself killed like that, sorry you had to go through this like you have. And… oh kami, I've missed you so much, B."

"Idiot," she murmured, finally relenting and hugging him back, "I've missed you, too. Even these stupid fights."

"At least this one was easy to resolve," he joked with a crooked grin, laughing a bit when she swatted him.

"You're just lucky I'm too glad to see you to do anything properly horrible," she grumbled, "Hey, wait – does your being here mean that we have a new Guardian of Earth?"

"Yeah," Yamcha nodded an affirmative, "He's not a Namekian, though, so I don't know if you'll be able to use the Dragon Balls again or not."

"You know him?"

"Well, sort of," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck, "I met him briefly once – so did you, actually. Remember Upa?"

Bulma blinked, thought for a moment, then blinked again. "What, the little kid from the first time we met Baba?"

"That's him," Yamcha confirmed.

"Damn," she shook her head, "You know, I always sort of thought it was Son the craziness followed, but I'm beginning to think it was our whole group. Oh, and by the way-"

"OW!" Yamcha's brows furrowed and he rubbed his arm where Bulma had punched it, in earnest this time as opposed to play, "What was that for – I've only been here for about fifteen minutes!"

" _That's_ for never telling me your name isn't really 'Yamcha,'" Bulma huffed, crossing her arms.

"…what?"

"Tae told me- other you told me that 'Yamcha' wasn't his real name," Bulma gestured in the direction she'd last seen Trunks and the youth in question, "And I mean, _seriously_?! I know we weren't always on the best terms, but you couldn't have-"

She stopped because her friend had laid a finger on her lips. "Bulma," he said seriously, but with a faint amusement in his eyes, "I don't know exactly what he said to you, but 'Yamcha' is the only name I've ever had. Honest."

"I- what? But you- he-" Bulma sputtered and Yamcha laughed.

"Looks like you've been had, B," he snickered, "Why on earth did he tell you that, anyway?"

It was an innocent question, spoken with good humour… and it brought up every single one of the jumbled, painful emotions she'd felt when she first saw who exactly her son had brought back with him. Standing suddenly seemed like too big a task even for her, and she sat down on a crumbling section of wall nearby, arms around her stomach. "I- It was back when he first arrived. Seeing him, seeing _you_ … it hurt. Especially because it _wasn't_ really you." She looked away. "He told me to call him 'Tae' instead of 'Yamcha,' to avoid confusion, and he said it was okay because it wasn't the first time he'd changed his name…" she glanced up at her friend drily, "He said no one's _born_ with a cool name like 'Yamcha.'"

"What can I say? Some of us get lucky," Yamcha shrugged, then walked over to sit beside her, tucking her into his side with one arm, his grin turning wistful, "I'd always sort of thought, if I ever had a son, that that's what I'd call him. 'Tae.' I guess in a way I do, now – or a younger brother."

"More like a twin that was somehow born much, much later than you," Bulma murmured, leaning into him. She'd missed this. More than anything, she'd missed these quiet moments, no acts, no masks, no make-up, just her and just him and that quiet tug that always pulled them back together, as lovers, as friends, no matter how they fought, that could take months and _years_ of separation and wipe them away like they'd never been. Except, well… this time it was harder to forget. Even beyond how long he'd been gone this time, he still looked exactly like she remembered him – strong and friendly and _young_. And she- she wasn't anymore. The dead might not age, but mortals definitely did, and she was under no illusions about how kind the years had been to her. She looked damn good… but it was damn good for fifty, not thirty-three, and-

"Hey now, you stop that."

She jumped at the finger lightly flicking her nose, and looked back up at Yamcha. "What…?"

He grinned at her, "You were getting your 'oh no, I'm out in public and forgot to moisturize last night' face. Beautiful geniuses don't need to worry about that sort of thing, remember? I thought I'd told you often enough."

"Gracefully aging genius at this point," Bulma muttered a touch sulkily, only to have her chin caught and gently turned back to look at him again.

"How many times do I have to remind you, B?" he asked, leaning down to rest his forehead against hers, "You're always beautiful."

She swallowed hard, wiping her eyes. "Careful, Yams. Keep this up and I'm not sure I'll be able to let you go again. Kai, I'm already not sure how I'm going to do it…"

"Shit, I'm sorry, B, I- I didn't even _think_ of that-"

He looked so stricken that she couldn't help but laugh a bit, because he really hadn't changed, "No, I didn't mean it, it's okay. I'll take what I can get – and you'll be waiting for me, right?"

"You even have to ask?" he gave her a faint grin, "We're all waiting for you. You're the one that brought us all together in the first place, remember? None of us would have ever met if you hadn't decided to go chasing a whim and a legend. The team's not complete if you're not with us."

…it probably shouldn't have been such a relief to hear that, but, in a way, it really was. She'd known the afterlife was real since she was twenty and they first used the dragon balls to reverse death, but hearing it said, this promise that she really _would_ see them all again, that they hadn't moved on without her, it was oddly reassuring. "You'll probably be waiting awhile, then – I've got a lot of stuff to do here before I get to join you guys."

"We know," he reassured her, "And I think they'd all agree with me when I say I'm glad to hear it – there's no one I'd trust more when it comes to fixing something that's been broken."

She chuckled and shoved him lightly, "The world's a little bit more complicated than a space ship, you know. Anyway, am I in for a parade of ghosts, now? Because I might need some warning before Son comes back – I don't have the larder I once did."

Yamcha laughed at that, "I'll see what I can do. I'm pretty sure Gohan's hoping he can pull off being Trunks's best man, though. He mentioned something about promises and embarrassing wedding speeches, I think."

"Of course he remembered that," Bulma shook her head in wry amusement, "He always used to try and intimidate Trunks by saying he'd tell all sorts of embarrassing stories about him at his wedding. Trunks never believed him – he said he was going to be single forever because romance and kissing was gross."

"He seems to have gotten over that, from what I saw when I got here."

"He most definitely has," Bulma agreed, "Would you like to see him again, him and Tae both? I'll warn you, though, Trunks has grown a lot since you last met him, and they're an almost unbearably cute couple."

"Later," Yamcha said firmly, "First I wanna hear about what you've been up to. I managed to get to one of the places you can view the mortal world in time to see that fight, you know, the last one you three had – what was that gun you were using and why did it look like my old FX50?"

And Bulma laughed and began to talk, slowly catching up and settling the past with her bandit while, a short distance away, Trunks continued working to build a future with his.

OoOoOoOoO

 _And that's it for the main storyline – continue to the last 'chapter' for a quick epilogue! Also,_ _ **please drop me a line and let me know if you liked this chapter, last chapters generally get very few reviews in my experience and I'd really appreciate it if you let me know what you thought of all this, this was a tough one and I'd love some feedback!**_

 _One of the interesting things about this fic is that, at the beginning, I really wasn't a YamBul fan, at all, not in the OTP sense. However a couple reviews and one particular reviewer inadvertently made me realize that I wasn't being really fair to the ship even though I've openly acknowledged in the past that it had to have had good points to have gone on as long as it did. And, as a result, it's now properly off the No Fly list for me as a ship. Also, I wish to take a moment to be smug because hell yeah, I just included VegeBul, Trucha,_ _ **and**_ _YamBul in a fic without any overlaps or love triangles!_

 _I know some of you were hoping to see Yamcha and future!Yamcha or Trunks meet, and, to be honest, I'd like to see that as well. I just have no idea how it would go, everything I can think of just sort of meanders off with no good ending. (sighs) One of the hard things about being a writer sometimes is realizing you can't write something you'd like to because it doesn't add to or work with the story. Sadly, this is one of those instances. Unless one of you wants to take a whirl at how you think it would go, of course. ;)_

' _Tori' means 'bird' in Japanese, and it's been my secret little nickname for 16 for a couple years now. ;)_

 _FX50 is a reference – if you get the reference, you get bonus points for being up on your weird DBZ trivia!_

 _And lastly… hey, Ed, look – a dead person in the fic! Told you I'd do it! 8D_


	14. Epilogue - In a Timely Manner

Epilogue – In a Timely Manner

King Cold ended up arriving a few months after Mirai Trunks and Yamcha left. He brought _both_ his sons, all of their armies, and a chip on his shoulder to rival Vegeta's. It was an all-out declaration of war, and they arrived prepared not simply to conquer, but to make an example of FX-50 and all others who dared to defy the Cold Empire.

It probably would have worked out better if the group waiting for them hadn't had close to a year to prepare for them. Or if they had taken the motley group of fighters waiting for them when they touched down a bit more seriously – it never ends well for people who don't give motley groups of fighters due respect, it really doesn't.

As it was, King Cold emerged from his ship already in his second form, and Goku called dibs pretty much instantly. And years later, though he had many more adventures, and faced many more foes before he died, he would still definitively list the fight against Cold as one of his top ten most enjoyable.

18 fought Cooler with Piccolo. Or possibly Cooler _and_ Piccolo. It was kind of hard to tell what was going on from the outside, and neither of them were willing to comment afterwards. The icejin was definitely crying at one point, though, that was very clear on the film.

The fact that there _is_ a film of the fight is also why 18 didn't team up with 17 as had been previously planned, since her twin decided, last minute, to make a home video of the battle instead of, you know, _fighting_. He got his Krillin privileges revoked again for that one though, to be fair, it's a pretty good film. Gohan likes the part where his mom punched a soldier so hard they blew up. Goku wants her to teach him how to do that.

Gohan, for his part, didn't actually fight – he stayed home and babysat Goten and Bra, chatted with 16, and worked on his ki-sensing and meditation, because everyone decided that taking the nine-year-old to battle was probably not for the best.

Back to Chichi, the group in general was impressed at how well she fought, considering she had been retired from fighting previously and they hadn't known she'd started again. She was a welcome addition to the ranks, however, and, along with Lunch, Krillin, Tien, and Raditz, _decimated_ the three armies the icejin had brought with them. Lunch caused no less than three existential crises using her 'One Becomes Two' technique on unsuspecting aliens and caused general confusion in whatever portion of the battle field she was in. Krillin spin-kicked a spaceship back into orbit. Three times. With the same ship. The occupants were very pissed and very motion-sick by the time they managed to land. Tien pulled out a few very effective moves he hadn't really used since his assassin days, and which he later made 17 remove from the film.

But not before Vegeta saw them. The saiyan prince was deeply impressed, to the point that Tien is now one of the few people that he has categorized as 'worth talking to.' It should be noted that Raditz _still_ hasn't managed to make it into this category.

Speaking of whom, Raditz ran into some people he'd known in his Planet Trade days during the battle and had an absolutely _wonderful_ time beating the shit out of them. Then he ran into some more people he knew and actually _liked_ , and they all went and hid behind some rocks and reminisced until some of the Z Warriors yelled at him to get his tail back in the fight, though Raditz's friends refrained from rejoining the battle and are currently adapting quite well to life on Earth.

Vegeta, meanwhile, finally got to beat up Frieza. He found it a deeply cathartic experience, not to mention a damn satisfying one, and is somewhat less grumpy these days as a result (just don't mention the fact that Goku did it first to him).

While all this was going on, Bulma snuck onto Cold's ship with Chiaotzu (who, speaking of 'cold,' was a stone cold badass, whipped every guard they came across, and generally ensured Bulma had the time and safety to do her work). The self-proclaimed beautiful genius, for her part, found a computer console, cracked her knuckles, and started hacking. It was much easier to do now that she was familiar with the operating system, the keyboard, and the language, and she erased Earth from every known galactic database she could find, then, carefully and concisely, found her way into the main servers and back-up servers for the Planet Trade's data bases and erased them as well before dropping a spike into their finances, resulting in there not being much of a Planet Trade left for any battle survivors to return to, at least in regards to paperwork and money. After all, the Z Warriors were not the only ones that had been preparing, and the Colds weren't the only ones who knew how to run (or, in this case, ruin) a business empire. The brief period of time left between this act of corporate sabotage and the end of the battle was spent capsulizing as much tech as possible for later study in the event none of the ships survived the battle (a possibility Bulma counted as all too likely after her hair-raising experiences on Namek).

She needn't have worried, though – two vessels that were left behind did end up being mostly intact (not the ones Krillin had kicked, though), and Bulma claimed them as right of salvage for Capsule Corp. The others allowed this, mostly because none of them had any pressing need for a spaceship at that time. The Planet Trade members who survived the battle flew off shakily, already coming up with explanations as to what had happened and reasons to never return to that thrice-cursed planet (none of which had much at all to do with the truth, because the truth was embarrassing). It turned out that the explanations weren't necessary when they got back due to the chaos Bulma had strewn, but they didn't know that at the time.

The Z Warriors, of course, had a celebration over their victory and the fact that everyone actually managed to come out of the fight alive and with all their limbs attached. It was a slightly subdued party, because everyone was tired (big day and all), but it was fun. Lunch swapped stories of awesome with Chiaotzu while Lunch snuggled with Tien, Gohan took the opportunity to assuage some of his curiosity about Piccolo and ask him a million questions about the fight, and the brat was less obnoxious than Piccolo had always assumed he would be, so he allowed it. But _just this once_. (Spoilers: it will end up being more than once).

Raditz introduced his space friends to everyone, and a good portion of the evening was spent imparting some of the more important rules about living on Earth to them (no killing, be careful humans break easy, the kid with long hair is Goku's you have been warned), Krillin and 18 cuddled while 17 showed them his video footage, Goku gave Chichi the last pork bun, and the two youngest demi-saiyans had a nap in the corner.

Vegeta and Bulma were both _extremely_ pleased with themselves and at least mildly impressed with each other, and as a result managed to scrounge up enough reserves for an enjoyably energetic night in the bedroom once the party dispersed.

And, approximately nine months later, the Briefs family got another new addition – a little boy with lavender hair and a fuzzy bump of a tail, who was born _exactly_ when he was supposed to be.

The End

OoOoOoOoO

 _A careful examination of this fic's timeline will reveal that, yes, yes I did calculate everything so that Trunks would be born the same time he was during the canon timelines. He wasn't born late – Bra was born early. ;)_

 _And that's it for_ _ **Time Bandit**_ _– I didn't want to leave you all entirely hanging as to what happened for the fight with the Colds, so I hope you found this an enjoyable synopsis and, indeed, an enjoyable story overall! ^U^_

 _Ending a story like this is always a little bitter-sweet – when they go on this long it gives you time to get to know the characters and the world, but, for the author, it also gives you time to get to know your readers a little, to see who comes and goes with each new chapter, what people liked, what surprised them. The phrase "parting is such sweet sorrow" really does ring true here. Still, I've had a lot of fun with this, and I hope you have, too! Thanks again for reading and, until next time, this is Trickster signing out.  
_


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